


When a Spoon Falls

by winethroughwater



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Satan forgive me for this soap opera, Sibling Incest, Spellcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-10 05:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17420336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: "A spoon slips off one of their mother’s best saucers and clatters to the floor.  The old adage immediately comes to mind, but Zelda looks at her as if daring her to say it, so Hilda bites her tongue."





	1. Chapter 1

**January 2019**

 

A spoon slips off one of their mother’s best saucers and clatters to the floor.  The old adage immediately comes to mind, but Zelda looks at her as if daring her to say it, so Hilda bites her tongue.

 

Nearly a month later and they’re still finding Lettie’s things about the house in unexpected places.

 

Zelda makes an extensive list of things to take to baby Leticia, plans a time she can make the trip to Desmelda’s later in the week.

 

Hilda consults her own calendar.

 

* * *

 

 

**A Few Years Later**

 

The man standing on their porch has her daughter’s lovely olive complexion and traces of her dark curly hair left in his gray.

 

She has never wanted to kill anyone more.

 

“Zelda.”  He smiles.  “It’s been awhile. I don’t know if you remember me--”

 

“I do.”  

 

There’s more smiling and a little chuckle at her tone.  

 

Her nails may chip paint from the door she’s still holding.

 

“I was hoping Hilda might be home.”

 

“She is not. Now if you will excuse me.”

 

She starts to close the door because there isn’t any more to say.

 

“You were supposed to be finding me.”

 

A tremendous amount of exasperation pours out of the small figure suddenly by her side. The current pouting of her lips is distinctly her mother’s, though she uses it far more often. The tone, Zelda will have to take responsibility for.

 

“Sorry, darling.” Zelda’s hand tilts the little chin up at her and forces herself to smile. “Go and hide one more time.”

 

Based on the clatter of shoes on the hardwood, she runs off somewhere into the room behind them but not far.

 

“Maybe I could leave a number for Hilda to call me.”

 

“If you must.”

 

Zelda makes no offer of pen or paper nor gives any indication that she plans to remember it, just taps her foot and sighs.

 

“Was that the post?”

 

Her sister’s cheery British accent is unmistakable.

 

He’s looking past her now into the house; she herself turns to watch Hilda.

 

“Teddy, bug, get out of the dumb waiter.”

 

She tugs the little girl--who was halfway to cramming herself into the small space--up and grunts as if she is terribly heavy before setting her on her feet.

 

“It is old and dumb and you are likely to get stuck between floors.”

 

She glances in the direction of the door which Zelda has shut too late and stops short.

 

“Was that—”

 

There’s no use lying.  She’s clearly seen him.  But that doesn’t mean she has to make it easy. She leans with her back against the door until Hilda is saying, “ _Really_?” and pulling her away by the elbow.

 

Teddy watches the exchange from close behind Hilda and giggles.

 

*******************

 

“Cee?”

 

“Your sister said you were out.”

 

“Wasn’t exactly in.”  She rubs her hands down the front of her apron, as much a nervous tic as a practicality.  “I was downstairs.  With a body.”

 

Teddy looks at Cerberus dismissively then pulls on Zelda’s hand.

 

“Mummy found me. It doesn’t count.”

 

“Come with me, Theodora,” Zelda says, clasping her daughter’s hand tightly and leading her into the kitchen. “Time for a snack, I think.”

 

“ _You_ don’t make snacks.”  

 

“Of course not.  You’re going to be in charge.  I think I want rack of lamb and jellied eel.”

 

“ _Nasty_.”

 

Any other time the child’s perfect parroting of Hilda’s accent would have made her laugh.

 

*******************

 

Teddy, satisfied with a mouthful of one of the cookies that appear on the table every afternoon, is quiet enough that Zelda can eavesdrop on the conversation taking place on the porch.

 

_“This is a surprise.”_

 

Her sister has always had a penchant for stating the obvious.

 

_“You look well.”_

 

_“So do you.”_

 

Zelda rolls her eyes and accepts the cookie Teddy is jostling in her direction.

 

Hilda’s lessons about sharing being caring or some such drivel have resulted in the girl forcing food, drink, dolls, crayons, insects, whatever she has in hand, onto the people around her—whether they want it or not.

 

_“Hilda, I hate the way I left things.”_

 

_“The way you left with no explanation?”_

 

Good for Hilda.

 

_“There is one, an explanation, but it’s one you might not believe, and really it doesn’t excuse anything.”_

 

_“I think you would be surprised at what I could believe.”_

 

The cookie becomes crumbs as Zelda’s fingers become a fist.   _Was Hilda flirting with him?_

 

_“Could we meet sometime soon?  Tonight maybe and have dinner?”_

 

_“I don’t know.”_

 

_“Please.  I know. I’ve got no right to ask.  But I’d like to make things at least better between us.  As friends.”_

 

_“Alright.”_

 

_“Should I pick you up--”_

 

_“Better I meet you in town somewhere.”_

 

Better, indeed.

 

*******************

 

“I won’t be gone long.”

 

Hilda kisses the top of Teddy’s head and smiles down at the two of them on the living room rug.

 

“Dinner just needs to be warmed.”

 

“We are perfectly capable of feeding ourselves, aren’t we?”  

 

“Uh-huh,” Teddy answers but she’s obviously too busy with the crayon in her hand to worry about things like dinner. Her tongue is soon poking out of her mouth again as she concentrates.

 

Zelda hasn’t spoken directly to Hilda all evening.

 

She knows that Hilda finds her silence more frightening than her outright ire, that the longer she seethes, the jumpier and more unnerved Hilda will become.

 

She ignores her now as Hilda says, “ _Right_. I’ll see you later then, I guess.”

 

Instead Zelda looks down at the messy tracing Teddy has made of her hand.

 

She lifts her hand and compares it to the paper.

 

“That looks nothing like my hand.”

 

“You were wiggly.”

 

************************************************

 

Hilda had not moved out of their room after her “temporary” return at the holidays. While they hadn’t actually shared a bed again, she’d assumed it was only a matter of time.

 

She had not taken the news of her sister’s _dalliance_ well.

 

Why Hilda had ever thought she could simply swan into the kitchen that night and announce, “You can stop teasing me now. I’ve finally done it,” Zelda will never understand.

 

Not with the amount of sharp objects surrounding them.

 

It had been a toss-up between killing her and fucking her and she’d gone with the later only because she refused to break the promise she had made to _herself_ after the Batibat incident. There was no sense in torturing herself for her sister’s stupidity.

 

Was it hypocritical?  Absolutely. She’d certainly had her share of lovers over the years, though not as many as she’d led Hilda to believe. It was good to keep her sister on her toes.

 

It was downright blasphemous to discourage Hilda from exploring her carnal side outside of their own relationship.

 

But there it was.

 

And of all the people Hilda could have taken to bed (she assumes it was in a bed and dreadfully missionary) over the years? This mediocre mortal? Who dressed as a celluloid vampire?   _On purpose_?  

 

Had she known her sister was about three hours pregnant, she probably would not have bent her over the table the way she had and been so rough with her.

 

If she is completely honest with herself, had she known, in _that_ moment, she _would_ have killed Hilda and taken her sweet time digging the grave.  

 

Hilda would have emerged from the Cain pit the next morning; her little problem would not have.

 

It isn’t a night she likes to think back on.

 

Especially not with that once hypothetical child now curled beside her, very real and fiercely loved— _her_ daughter, who she’d finished off a quart of chocolate ice cream with in front of the television earlier after tossing the dinner Hilda had prepared in the bin.

 

She had been there for her quickening, the moment she moved within Hilda.

 

Months later, she’d drawn her from Hilda’s body.  Cleared her mouth for her first breath and laid her against Hilda’s sweat-slicked breasts. She’d severed her, for better or worse, from the safety of Hilda’s body, tied the cord and looked on in wonder as their daughter squirmed and cried in her mother’s arms.  

 

“Hilda . . . look what you made.”

 

Their daughter was born on the collision of a Cold Moon and the Solstice with Zelda wrapped around her tiny little finger.

 

************************************************

 

“Doctor” Cerberus was gone well before Hilda had realized she was with child.

 

There had been a month of limbo after Hilda’s announcement of her milestone in personal growth.

 

Hilda, at the epicenter, was convinced this independent new life she thought she _could_ have could somehow run parallel to the life they had _always_ had:  mornings around the table with the family, her days serving coffee and exchanging saliva with the mortal, nights spent under and over Zelda.

 

But at the end he was gone.

 

Of course, Hilda was hurt.

 

“Did you say something to him?”

 

“Did I, your sister, go into that wretched shop and play the jealous lover?”

 

She hadn’t been able to tell by the strange look on Hilda’s face what answer her sister had wanted to hear.

 

“No,” she had answered honestly. “I _cannot_ be blamed for this.”

 

The next morning had found Hilda picking at her breakfast, expression decidedly hangdog.

 

“Men are fickle.”

 

Both Sabrina and Ambrose had agreed.

 

A ludicrously vague letter had arrived within the week and Zelda had not mocked. Abusing her sister when she was already down had never brought her any real joy.

 

Things _should_ have gone blessedly back to normal.

 

*******************

 

“Sabrina!  Come here immediately!”  

 

She can’t think of a time she has been any angrier at the girl. Not even when she had run away from her own Baptism and humiliated all of them had she reached this level of, of--

 

Her niece has the nerve to walk calmly into the bathroom and ask, “What’s wrong, Auntie Zee?”

 

“Explain this.”

 

She points to the counter, cluttered with evidence.

 

Sabrina raises her eyebrow and crooks her mouth.

 

“Someone left a bunch of stuff out on the counter?”  

 

“I think you know very well what this ‘stuff’ is for.”

 

Sabrina looks genuinely confused.  But Zelda will not buy this innocent act Sabrina plays at.  She is not Hilda.

 

“Did you learn nothing from the talks we had?  I feel I was very thorough. Especially about how to prevent this!”

 

Ambrose appears in the doorway, drawn by the shouting in such an unusual location.  He takes one look at the counter and asks, “Who’s pregnant?”

 

“Hold on.”  Sabrina’s eyes have gone wide.  “That’s what this is? I’m not pregnant. I assure you.”  She even laughs at the end, shaking her head.

 

“Don’t lie about this!”  Zelda rubs her fingers into her temples, head pounding.  “You’ll need my help to take care of it safely while there’s still time.”

 

“Once again. I am not pregnant, Aunt Zelda.”  

 

Her expression has changed when Zelda looks back at her.  She’s working herself up to be righteously indignant.

 

“ _Sabrina_.”

 

“I don’t need your _incredibly_ _threatening_ help.”

 

“ _Zelda_.  Obviously wasn’t expecting you home so soon.”

 

Hilda’s standing in the doorway now.

 

The components of the spell to determine pregnancy had obviously been Hilda’s.

 

Zelda feels as if she’s been run through with great grandfather’s broadsword, split right open, the depths of herself pouring out for all to see.

 

Her eyes burn.

 

Hilda is with child. _His_ child.

 

Zelda reaches out for something to lean on as her world tilts sharply off its axis. Her vision has gone blurry.

 

“Aunt Hilda?  You’re _pregnant_?”

 

Sabrina launches herself at her younger aunt. They hug, grin, laugh, giddy at this news.

 

But Ambrose has been watching Zelda carefully.

 

“Cuz, I think we should go out for a while.”

 

“Why?  This is--”

 

“Trust me. You don’t want to be here for this.”

 

*******************

 

“Say something, sister.”

 

Hilda’s voice is so wretchedly expectant. She looks like joy incarnate:  face scrunched in a grin, cheeks rosy, her blue eyes framed by damp lashes.

 

Hilda reaches for her and Zelda recoils as if her hands were made of fire.

 

“How can you”-- _do this to me, without me, leave me, hurt me, betray me, love someone more than me_ \--“smile?”

 

“ _What_?”  She snorts at the absurdity of the question.  “Of course, I’m smiling, silly.  I’m happy.”

 

She takes a step towards her sister, still too dumbstruck by her news to realize what she is heading towards.  

 

“A _baby_ , Zelda. We’re having a baby.”

 

She forces her voice to come out steady, formal: “You’ve located the absconded father then?”

 

“ _Cee_? I haven’t looked for him.”  

 

Another step towards her, until there’s barely any space between them.  

 

“I meant us, obviously. You and me.”

 

Hilda should not have trapped her against the sink and left her nowhere to retreat. It was her own fault, what Zelda says next.

 

“What makes you think I have the least interest in helping you raise your bastard?”

 

*******************

 

Things had only escalated from there.

 

Zelda had pointed out how particularly cruel it was that just after she’d given up Leticia, Hilda would be bringing another babe into the house—a house that was no safer now than it had been then; how stupid Hilda had been that not only did she let this mortal she barely knew fuck her, she hadn’t even had the good sense to use protection of any sort, magical or more mundane; how baffled—utterly dumbstruck—she was that another of her siblings was polluting the Spellman line with mortal blood.

 

She still deeply regrets that Sabrina overheard that last part.

 

*******************

 

“You could always do the sensible thing and brew yourself a tea.”

 

“No.”

 

“Or I could expedite the matter with a shove down the stairs.”

 

In their very long lives, that remains the single time Hilda has slapped her.

 

She still has no idea where Hilda went that night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All schmaltzy flashback all the time in this bit.

Zelda raises her head from her hand and sees Hilda like a dream silhouetted by the late morning sunlight.

 

“Tell me now. _Truthfully_. Do you want to be this child’s _—my_ child’s—other parent?  Because that’s what I want. I _can_ do this alone—I will if I have to—but I’d rather do it with you.”

 

A dream offering everything.

 

“After what I said?”

 

“You’re a horrible sister, Zelda, but generally you’ve been good at the whole mothering thing.  Despite the last few months and Sabrina’s current opinion.”

 

Hilda, real and standing in front of her with her magical, infinite capacity to forgive.

 

Zelda will not openly weep in their kitchen. Not again. She will curb this behavior before it becomes habit.

 

She reaches out and offers her hand to her sister, says, “It will be years before this one is a teenager.”

 

“ _So_?” Hilda’s voice lilts with hope. A smile starts to right the corners of her mouth and she laces her fingers with Zelda’s.

 

“You are going to get so fat.”

 

“ _I know_. Isn’t it extraordinary?”

 

Her grin at full power has Zelda pulling her close, collecting her in her lap.

 

“I love you.”

 

Zelda is well aware that Hilda probably counts the number of times she’s said these words clearly and out loud on one hand. They’re always whispered against Hilda’s ear like a secret or gasped against her throat as an oath.

 

“I need to know that you’ll love this baby too.”

 

“I promise I will try.”

 

***********************************

 

They shirk all responsibilities for the rest of the day, save to each other.  They pull their bedroom curtains and huddle together beneath a blanket.

 

Face hidden in the angle of Hilda’s neck to shoulder, she can safely vomit out fragments and let Hilda soothe them away with fingers down her spine, kisses to her knuckles:  The ache for this came suddenly in waves then ebbed for decades. Duty-bound but impossible to fathom without Hilda providing the better half. Leticia and the marvelous hour of watching her sleep in their room before Virginia Woolf marched in. Sabrina, loved more than her own life. Edward’s daughter, Diana’s daughter. Her sacred duty to never let her forget. The first birth she assists with and the repulsion she felt, not a triumph of woman and will but a primal possession.  How she had dreamed once. Dream-Hilda fashions a baby out of dough. They kneel shoulder-to-shoulder. Dream-self squints into the small window and sees only something that looks like a French loaf but dream sister smiles. Dream-self tells dream-Hilda that using the earth from the Cain pit would have worked better. Dream-Hilda laughs and tells her she isn’t Hippolyta. Dream-Hilda pulls a swaddled newborn from the oven when the timer buzzes. She’s still almost too warm when Dream-Hilda places her in her arms.

 

***********************************

 

Hilda takes to pregnancy the way she should have expected, as if growing a person were no different than growing turnips.

 

She glows and blooms and is the picture of health.

 

But still Zelda worries.

 

Some nights she dreams it is Hilda’s face she covers with the sheet instead of Lady Blackwood’s.

 

Hilda is not weak.

 

_No_ . Leticia’s mother had been _weakened_ , not weak.

 

Zelda frets. Hilda comforts. They have an unspoken agreement not to talk about _why_.

 

She’s as certain of what Hilda would tell her to do as she is of what she would actually do. There’s no use arguing about it.

 

They will always be at a stalemate about some things.

 

***********************************

 

Hilda spends the midpoint of her pregnancy ravenous.

 

She eats bowl after bowl of figs fresh from the tree.

 

She pulls stacks of dusty cookbooks from the shelf and ticks off the recipes one-by-one.

 

Zelda spends two months sore between the legs and constantly smelling of Hilda.

 

***********************************

 

“Hilda, do shut up.”

 

Her sister’s mouth remains open but the chatter has stopped.

 

“If not for my sake, then hers.”

 

Zelda had spent a rare weekday at home and been privy to the rambling, _endless,_ commentary Hilda subjects her captive audience to.

 

The poor babe within her did not need to know how many handfuls of currants to add to the pastries Hilda was baking earlier nor does she need to know that the gown Zelda is wearing now was once the pale cocoons of silkworms who only ate juniper bark.

 

“ _You_ could talk to him too.”  

 

It’s a Tuesday so Hilda is convinced it is a boy.

 

Zelda refuses to even entertain the thought.  

 

They are having a daughter.  

 

Hilda’s body--from the way her swollen abdomen sits so high to the dark line bisecting her stomach that has stopped just short of reaching her belly button--is clearly broadcasting as much.

 

Of course, there is the simplest of tests Zelda could run, but Hilda won’t hear of it.

 

Once in bed, she settles with her cheek against Hilda’s belly.  Her reward is her sister’s fingers stroking contentedly through her hair.

 

“One day you will be capable of running into another room and away from her voice.”

 

She easily dodges the swat of Hilda’s hand and swoops back down to plant a kiss to the curve of belly, beneath which is definitely a girl-child.

 

***********************************

 

Zelda still says (and does) horrible things. Hilda is exactly as annoying as she ever was.  

 

There are still two beds in their room for a damned good reason.

 

***********************************

 

“Your Aunt Hilda will weep uncontrollably. But she will love the idea. It’s very sweet, Sabrina dear.”

 

“Are _you_ going to cry, Auntie Zelda?”  

 

“Why should I?  You’re only articulating what we all know.”

 

***********************************

 

“I was thinking, that maybe when she’s born, instead of calling her my _cousin_ , would it be alright if I called her my _sister_?”

 

One hour and thirteen minutes.

 

The time Hilda goes from outright sobbing to the occasional sniffle.

 

***********************************

 

Zelda looks sharply at Hilda not for the first time that day.

 

Hilda’s grin turns to grimace.

 

Zelda is standing and offering Hilda her hands before she even finishes saying, “Happy Solstice, sister— _bloody hell_ —I believe I’m getting you a baby this year.”

 

“Yes, well, come upstairs before she ends up under the tree with the rest of the presents.”

 

***********************************

 

“Zelda.”

 

Fear has crept into Hilda’s eyes between the foot of the stairs and the landing.

 

“It hasn’t even been a full year yet.”

 

“She’s just a little early.  So was Sabrina if you’ll recall.”

 

It _is_ earlier than a witch-child would be born.  But then it is so hard to tell when the equation is unbalanced.

  


***********************************

 

Sabrina is relegated to Yule log duty downstairs--Zelda will _not_ have a repeat of last year--but sometime before morning, she’s summoned upstairs.

 

***********************************

 

“She’s so _tiny_.”

 

“Didn’t seem so a couple of hours ago.”

 

“Put your hand beneath her neck.  There.”

 

“If it’s alright with you, Sabrina, love, we’d like to name her after your father.”

 

“Theodora.”

 

“ _Teddy_.”

 

“I didn’t know anyone called him that.”

 

“When he was a boy.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for all the reviews! They definitely make me write faster. :) 
> 
> I warned you it would turn into a soap opera; however, my favorite soap opera just so happens to be Dark Shadows. I promise no mad women will be in the attic. (I was getting sleepy as I was proofreading so there may be some errors I'll have to fix tomorrow.)

Aesthetically, Theodora Spellman is perfection.

 

She has Hilda’s cherub mouth and Hilda’s big blue eyes and Hilda’s apple cheeks.  The dark hair, Zelda is able to convince herself, is a Spellman trait too. Edward had dark hair, as did their mother.  

 

She absently traces her finger across the cleft in her chin as she studies the miniature closely.

 

“She does look a bit like me as a babe, don’t you think?”

 

The locket in her hand contains paintings of two infants:  Edward on the left and herself on the right. Mother had stopped wearing it when Hilda was born and there was a third who didn’t fit between the hinges.

 

The baby laying against her sister’s chest roots her angry face against Hilda’s breast until Hilda presses the nipple to her lips. Her mouth starts to work immediately.

 

“I can see a resemblance,” Hilda teases.  “Sometimes more than others.”

 

Zelda blushes.

 

“And she definitely has your chin.”

 

*********************************

 

Otherwise Teddy Spellman is a horrible baby.

 

The crib they’d brought down from the attic is almost purely decorative. Zelda is certain Teddy will never spend a single night in it.

 

Leticia had been like a little doll, happy in her bassinet and fretting only occasionally. The nights Sabrina cried out and ran to their room came later, around the time she was starting school.

 

This one screams to wake the dead every time she is put down.

 

She seems to have been born with a sixth sense to know, even while asleep, if she is no longer being held.

 

Even nestled between them, she sleeps in short shifts.  

 

*********************************

 

The family spends the first few months of Teddy’s life almost entirely sleep deprived.

 

Hilda falls asleep on her feet, leaning against the autopsy table.  Zelda makes a student burst into tears for being off key.

 

“The Weird sisters murdering me in my sleep doesn’t seem so bad anymore,” Sabrina muses over breakfast. “I’m considering moving on campus.”

 

Zelda shifts her newspaper to look at her niece.

 

“Only if I can come with you.”

 

*********************************

 

She needs this.

 

The darkened room lit only by a cluster of candles in the window.  The tub filled with water hot enough to turn her skin pink and fill the room with steam  The delicious image flooding her senses and driving her fingers, deeper, harder into herself.  Her other hand is at work, stroking a finger on either side of her clit.

 

Zelda arches her back, the sweet end in sight.

 

“ _Hill-da. Uhh_.”

 

She gasps as Hilda, real and not fantasy, kneels beside the tub.

 

“Please don’t stop.”

 

She’s too far gone to stop.  

 

Especially when Hilda slides her hands slowly past her shoulders until her fingers graze her breasts beneath the water.  She rolls them between her fingers and meets Zelda’s desperate mouth as her neck strains back.

 

*********************************

 

Zelda’s head rests against the back of the tub.

 

“I truly didn’t mean to get caught this time.”

 

Hilda’s fingers trace the line of her jaw.

 

“Do you know how cross I’d have been if I’d missed this?  You,” Hilda’s voice is unusually breathy, “having a wank in the tub?”

 

She laughs and Zelda slaps a hand down into the water to splash her.

 

"Oi!"

 

When quiet falls over them again, Hilda asks, “No biting retort about how you wouldn’t have to if I were less leaky and generally gross?”

 

“Do you know what I was thinking about?”

 

“A bevy of svelte young things from your choir?”

 

“I’m not telling you now.”

 

Zelda steps out of the tub and reaches for a towel.

 

She is spitefully aware of the effect the candle light on her skin and the rivulets of water running down her legs creates.

 

She hears a bit of it in Hilda’s voice now as she calls after her.

 

*********************************

 

Something is off.

 

It takes her until she is tying the sash of her robe to put the pieces together—Hilda alone, Sabrina out, the house quiet—and to rush across the room.

 

She peers down into the crib and is relieved-- _shocked_ \--to see Teddy asleep.

 

“This is what I was coming to tell you,” Hilda whispers at her side, “when I got distracted.”

 

“Did you hex her mute?”

 

Hilda snorts, then covers her mouth to quiet her laugh.  

 

She’s staring down at the sleeping infant with such a contented smile that Zelda can’t help but confess:  “This morning you reached up to get something or other out of the cabinet and all I wanted to do was hold you and kiss that spot below your ear.”

 

“ _Zelds_.”

 

Hilda says it in the way that is generally preceded by an “oh” or an “aww,” like she has been an unexpectedly good puppy.

 

“That’s what I was thinking about when you walked in.”

 

Blue eyes blink back tears.

 

“The next time you want to do that, you can.”

 

So she does.

 

She glides behind Hilda and pushes herself flush against her back until the curve of Hilda’s ass is pressing into her pelvis. Her hands sweep down Hilda’s arms to cover her fingers where they grip the railing of the crib.

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

She sighs next to Hilda’s ear—“I don’t find you gross in the least”—then brushes her lips to that spot that makes her sister shiver. “Quite the contrary.” Hilda can surely feel the peaks of her breasts even through the layers of satin and cardigan and cotton.

 

“ _Satan_.”

 

*********************************

 

Tumbling into their bed, Hilda warns,  “If we wake her, you’ll be the one to sit up with her.”

 

“Worth it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Something is wrong.  Beyond the obvious.

 

It’s written across Hilda in a dozen different ways as she sits on the edge of Teddy’s bed, watching them.

 

Zelda closes the book she’s been reading aloud for the last half-hour.

 

“That’s enough for tonight, hmm?”

 

The fingers that were twirling a long strand of her hair have already gone still and the little girl nods.  

 

She’s inherited enough of Hilda’s empathic awareness to not fuss tonight.

 

Zelda savors the arms too tight around her neck and the kiss too messy to her cheek.

 

*********************************

“I love you. So, so much.”

 

When Hilda kisses her goodnight and rises to leave, Teddy looks at her with narrowed eyes and kicks her feet beneath the covers.  

 

Hilda never forgets to perform their bedtime ritual.

 

“How could I forget?  Snug as a bug in a rug . . .”

  


*********************************

 

As their door closes, unsure which to voice, Zelda spits out all the conclusions to the scenarios that had been running through her head all evening.

 

“He can’t have her.  I won’t just let you leave and take her.  I’m her mother too.”

 

_None_ of them are happening. And if Hilda or that mortal think otherwise--

 

“Zelda, hold me.”

 

Hilda’s voice is little more than a whisper; tears are already streaming down her cheeks as her arms circle Zelda’s waist and she presses her face against her sister’s chest.  

 

Panic sits at the back of Zelda’s throat as Hilda’s fingers clutch at the back of her robe.

 

Zelda pulls her close, hands stroking her hair, her back, swaying slowly with her in the same way she had Teddy years ago.

 

“What’s wrong, my love?”

 

The unmistakable hitch and hiccup of Hilda’s crying intensifies.  

 

“What is it?”

 

“Something may be wrong with her.”

 

“What do you mean?  You’ve just seen her. She’s perfectly fine.”

 

“She may be . . . ill.”

 

“ _Ill_ how?  Tell me.”  

 

She doesn’t make a conscious decision to hold Hilda at arm’s length.

 

“He’s . . . Zelda, promise not to hurt him.  It isn’t his fault. I’m the one--”

 

“ _Hilda_.”  

 

Her grip on Hilda’s arms may very well leave bruises.

 

“He’s a werewolf.”

 

Hilda sinks to the floor near their bed when Zelda lets go of her entirely to wrap her arms around her own stomach.

 

“It’s not guaranteed.”  

 

Hilda, terminally optimistic, can’t help herself.

 

“It’s the toss of a coin.”

 

Zelda, who’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop all this time, can’t help herself either.

 

She’s filled with white hot rage directed nowhere and everywhere.

 

“How could this--”

 

“If you’re going to tell me again, if you’re about to suggest this is some sort of punishment for ever _fucking_ someone besides you, you can save your breath. I can’t hear it again now.”

 

The rage finds a target.

 

“That’s what you think I’m upset about?”

 

Her hand is on the doorknob when Hilda asks, “Where are you going?”

 

“Somewhere else.”  Though her words are quiet, Zelda slams the door behind her hard enough to rattle their bedroom window and to echo through the house.

 

By the time she’s on the landing, she hears Teddy’s voice.  

 

Hilda won’t be able to follow her.

  


*********************************

 

The amber liquid in the decanter is visibly less than it was when Zelda sat down.

 

She’d drank enough to dissolve her anger into tears.  

 

She finishes what’s in her glass then speaks to the dark room to her right.

 

“I can’t take back any of the things I said to you then. You’re right not to forget them either. I don’t blame you.”

 

Hilda steps out of the shadows.

 

“But never say that I think that little girl is anything other than the most miraculous gift.”

 

*********************************

 

“You told him about her?”

 

“I was terrified. This horrible thing may be taking over my child.  I had to tell him. He knows more about this than we do.”

 

“Hilda, I understand.”

 

“He wants to meet her.”

 

Zelda nods.  

 

“When?”

 

“Tomorrow.”

 

“What are you planning to tell her?”

 

“I think we just say he’s a friend who’s come to visit. That isn’t a lie.”

 

“Then he is your friend coming to visit.”

 

*********************************

 

“Drink this.”  

 

Zelda passes her nearly empty glass to Hilda.  

 

“For your nerves.”

 

For once Hilda doesn’t protest. She takes a deep swallow and closes her eyes as it burns down her throat.

 

*********************************

 

“How do we explain--how do we explain all the rest to her?   _Zelda_.  She’s just a baby.  She doesn’t--”

 

Zelda grasps Hilda’s hand, frames her face with her other, and makes sure she is looking in her eyes as she says, “We find a cure and she never has to know.”

 

She doesn’t need Hilda’s gift for mind reading to know what her sister is thinking.  Hilda’s face says she knows how long werewolves and witches alike have been searching for a cure and finding none.

 

“They didn’t have our motivation.”

  



	4. Chapter 4

Zelda pulls every book the Academy’s vast library has to offer on the subject.  

 

It’s a shockingly small stack.

 

She locks herself in her office for the morning and forces herself to look at page after page, no matter how their contents make her stomach churn.

 

*********************************

 

She calls Ambrose in London.

 

She calls Sabrina into her office.

 

*********************************

 

She magics home to just outside the kitchen but neither of its occupants notice.

 

Teddy is perched on a stool at Hilda’s island, back to Zelda and busy.  Hilda is intent at the stove, calling absently over her shoulder, “Put some flour on them, love, so they won’t stick to your fingers.”

 

Though she would be loath to admit it to anyone--even Hilda--this is exactly the sort of domestic scene Zelda hoards in memory down to the smallest detail.  The heat from the stove just this side of too-warm for a summer day.  Layers of scents, savory and sweet, too many to untangle and identify.  The wet smack of small hands into dough and the way Hilda blows a blonde curl out of her face.

 

In all, it’s entirely too tempting not to join them.

 

When she sneaks up behind Teddy and grabs her, the girl squeals and laughs; Hilda jumps, because she always does.

 

“You’re home for lunch with me?”  Zelda steers Teddy’s hands away from her dress.  She’s become quite adept at dodging messy hands over the last few years.  Teddy is a far _stickier_ child than she remembers Sabrina being.

 

“I heard you were helping and couldn’t stay away.” She drops a kiss to the top of Teddy’s head and inhales.  She isn’t sure what plants Hilda mixes to make their daughter’s hair smell like bubblegum.

 

“I wasn’t sure you’d be joining us.”  

 

There’s a testiness to Hilda’s voice--no doubt because Zelda had left before the light this morning and before saying anything at all to Hilda.  

 

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” she promises.

 

She’s about to move close enough to tuck the wayward curl that’s worked itself into Hilda’s face again behind her ear, when a cloud of flour fills the air between them.  

 

“ _Teddy_.”

 

The testiness is replaced by sheer exasperation.

 

“Even I know that’s too much,” Zelda teases.  She won’t scold because, honestly, who trusts a five-year old with a ten-pound sack of flour?

 

“I’ll take your sous chef to get cleaned up,” she offers.

 

Zelda grabs her carefully under her arms and deposits her to the floor.

 

“There are clothes laid out on her bed.”

 

*********************************

 

Teddy holds her shirt in one hand and jumper in the other, looks back and forth between them and sighs, such a long-suffering sound for one so young.

 

“They don’t match.”

 

Zelda tries not to laugh at her daughter’s plight.  

 

While both patterns may be paisley, they are in shockingly different color schemes. Not for the first time, she wonders if her sister has some form of color-blindness.

 

“Want to pick something else?”

 

“Yes, please.”

 

*********************************

 

Zelda kneels down to help Teddy straighten the collar of her ivory shirt over the little navy jumper she is wearing.

 

“I think this is much better.”  

 

“Me too.”  

 

She watches Teddy admire herself in the mirror and finds it impossible to reconcile the happy little girl standing in front of her with the poor, tortured beasts on the pages of those books.   

 

She will not let one become the other.

 

Her chest tightens and a pair of blue eyes cut her way, suspicious.

 

“Now what about your hair?”  She needs to distract herself and the humidity from the kitchen has sent the girl’s hair from curly to unruly. She sits on Teddy’s bed and motions to her vanity.  “Bring me some ribbons, please.”

 

*********************************

 

She’s started to understand why Hilda took to pushing Sabrina’s hair back with a headband and otherwise letting it go as she tries for the second time to get Teddy’s hair into a halfway decent braid.  

 

“Why do I have to dress up for lunch?”

 

Teddy’s squirming isn’t helping.

 

“Didn’t Hilda tell you?”

 

“Her friend is coming.”

 

“Someone she knew before you were born.”

 

Teddy doesn’t look pleased with the idea of a time before her when she turns to stare at Zelda.

 

“You don’t have to like him,” she explains, “but you will be polite.”  She punctuates the statement with her index finger to the cleft in Teddy’s chin--which did turn out to be very much like her own.

 

“Ready?” Hilda enters, anxiety fairly humming off her now, and takes a quick glance at herself in the mirror.

 

“Headband it is,” Zelda says, standing and sending Teddy off.

 

Hilda pauses and takes in a much more somberly attired child than she had anticipated.

 

“You look very smart, love.”

 

Teddy is carefully laying one headband after another against the navy of her outfit.

 

“What was wrong with the outfit I picked out?”

 

Hilda is right in front of her now; they’ve gravitated towards each other in that way they do.

 

“Do you really need me to answer that?”

 

She cuts off the forthcoming response with a kiss. Just a brushing of her lips against Hilda’s but she feels her sister smile faintly against her mouth.

 

This is how they should have spent last night instead of screaming at each other. But then she could say that about so very many nights—mornings, afternoons, and evenings too.

 

“Ugh.”  

 

“Hush, miss.  And put on your shoes.”

 

*********************************

 

Teddy bolts down the stairs ahead of them when the doorbell rings.

 

“Theodora, what have we told you?”  

 

She pauses with her hand on the doorknob at Zelda’s voice.

 

“Always let one of _us_ open the door, love.”

 

She steps back and waits impatiently at Hilda’s.

 

*********************************

 

Her sister gives Teddy a once over that doesn’t sit well with Zelda.

 

She lays her hands on the girl’s shoulders, smiles down as Teddy smiles up, and dares the man to find any fault with her.

 

Hilda takes a deep breath and opens the door.

 

“Cee, come in.  Teddy, this is—”

 

“Sabrina!”

 

Cerberus dodges out of her way as Teddy runs past him to the other Spellman on the porch.

 

“Hey, you!”

 

Teddy throws her arms around Sabrina’s waist, barely waits for Sabrina to grab her, then lets herself go limp.

 

“Where is Salem?”  

 

“I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

 

Sabrina drags Teddy inside to the foyer but bites her bottom lip at the site of her youngest aunt watching them.

 

“Hope you don’t mind an extra for lunch.”  She lowers her voice: “Aunt Zee told me this morning.”

 

“I’m so glad you’re here.”  Hilda presses her hand to her cheek the way that never fails to comfort.  “I’ve missed you.”

 

Sabrina does not remind her that she was here last weekend, as she is most weekends, so neither does Zelda.  

 

“Theodora, use your legs, darling.”

 

*********************************

 

There is an absolute banquet of food before them and tall heaps on each of their plates, but Hilda’s “Well, tuck in, everyone” has thus far been the highlight of the conversation around the table.

 

“It’s sunny and warm outside.”

 

Four pairs of grown up eyes fix on the little girl.

 

“You’re interested in the weather?” Cee asks, surprised.  “You know, I used to be a meteorologist.”

 

Teddy turns to Zelda, whose mouth twitches at one corner as she nods, then back to Cerberus as she says, “I’m supposed to talk about the weather.”

 

“During awkward lulls in social conversation,” Zelda explains.

 

Hilda shoots Zelda _that_ look and mumbles through her smile, “Obviously still working on the finer points.”

 

“That’s okay. It’s good advice. And the weather’s more interesting than you might think.”

 

Hilda shakes her head, thank Lucifer, and they are spared a lecture on cirrus versus cumulus clouds.

 

“What kinds of things _do_ you like to talk about?” he asks.  “When the company isn’t awkward?”

 

Teddy considers, starts to keep count of her list on her fingers:  “I like giant things. I like Vinegar Tom.”

 

“The dog,” Sabrina clarifies when Cerberus looks confused.

 

“Things that are tiny. Earthworms. Tea parties with Tom and the spiders.”

 

“You also like films,” Hilda suggests, knowing the child’s list is only bound to get stranger.

 

“I would hardly call those _films_ , sister.”

 

Zelda happily leaves that family tradition to Hilda and the girls.  She prefers reading to watching _I Was a Teenaged So and So_.

 

“Tell him what we watched last weekend, Teddy.”  Sabrina has obviously decided to run interference, is smiling a touch too broadly. “You’ll like this, Dr. Cee.”

 

“Night of the Le . . . Leap—” Teddy can’t quite get her tongue around the word, so Hilda supplies, “Lepus.”

 

“That means ‘bunny.’”

 

“That’s right, darling.”  Zelda pats her hand. “It’s Latin.”

 

“That’s a classic. Did you like it?”

 

Teddy nods enthusiastically, leaning forward in her chair.

 

“The bunnies were as big as cars.”

 

“You should see _Them!_. It’s about giant radioactive ants.”

 

Teddy casts an eager look in Hilda’s direction.

 

“I think we have that one on video,” Hilda says.  She looks to the man at her left.  “Recorded from your show, actually.”

 

Zelda is not pleased to know Hilda still has that collection squirreled away somewhere in the house. She is also not pleased at the way her sister and the mortal exchange such easy smiles.

 

*********************************

 

“It’s a comic book.”

 

“Harvey draws them,” Teddy informs him then adds, “Thank you,” before Hilda can prompt her.

 

“Mommy will read it to me tonight,” Teddy says, far too sweetly.  She presses the book into Zelda’s hands and smiles up at her.  Typically Zelda would refuse to read her such nonsense, but Teddy, the wily little thing, knows she won’t tell her no in front of a guest, especially when it is a gift from Hilda’s “friend.”

 

When she runs off back to the kitchen, Cerberus stares after her, looking a touch awestruck.

 

Despite everything, Zelda doesn’t begrudge him the feeling.  She’s well familiar with it.

 

“How is Harvey?” he asks, finally.

 

Sabrina grins.  

 

“In art school and loving it.”

 

Teddy returns, waving a drawing from their refrigerator up at him.

 

Zelda watches him closely as he kneels down to be closer to Teddy’s height and takes the drawing in his hand.  His other hand comes to rest lightly, hesitantly, on the small of Teddy’s back.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“Harvey drew it.  That’s me.”  Teddy points to a figure that bears a striking resemblance to her, only it is not to scale with the rest of the drawing.

 

“And you’re . . . what _are_ you doing here?”

 

“Destroying downtown Greendale,” Sabrina answers. “He helped me babysit one weekend.”

 

 

*********************************

 

“She’s amazing.”

 

“Of course, she is.”

 

“We think so.”

 

*********************************

 

“It’s just the three of us for tea. Mummy’s spiders crawled away again.”

 

Sabrina looks at the third member of their little party.  

 

Same glassy-eyed stare, same frozen grin, the usual light coating of dust stuck to his nose--Vinegar Tom is still as disturbing as ever.  Even more so thanks to the addition of a lavender nightgown.

 

“This must be _some_ tea. He never let _me_ dress him up.”

 

Not that she would have dared.

 

“He won’t play if you just give him tea, silly.”

 

From beneath the small, ornate table, Teddy lifts a bottle of Glenlivet that is far older than both of them put together.

 

“Woah! Pretty sure you aren’t supposed to have that.”

 

When Sabrina moves to take it away, Teddy scoots it out of her reach.

 

“It’s just for Tom,” she scolds. “We’re having tea.”

 

*********************************

 

“Tell us what we need to know. Tell us everything, really. And, anything, however strange or obscure it might seem, about a cure. Don’t leave anything out.”

 

“Then you can go back to wherever you’ve been for the past six years.”

 

“I’ll share everything I know with you.   _Gladly_.  I’ll do anything.  But I wasn’t planning to leave town anytime soon.”

 

*********************************

 

“Is that my single malt?”

 

“Don’t look at me.”  Sabrina glances over her shoulder.  “Your familiar has expensive taste.”

 

Zelda stares at goblin-turned-beagle--she isn’t sure how Teddy gets him to do the things she does--and says the only thing she can in this situation:  “I don’t think lavender is his color.”

 

“I think he best have _pretend_ scotch from now on, bug.” Hilda lifts the bottle away as Teddy’s bottom lip swells in a pout. “And someone should put this on a higher shelf,” she whispers under her breath but obviously for Zelda’s benefit.  

 

*********************************

 

There’s something comforting in outright playing pretend when they are pretending everything is okay for Teddy’s sake anyways--even if sitting in the child-sized chair is decidedly uncomfortable.

 

“Sugar?” Teddy asks Hilda.

 

“Oh, yes, please.”

 

“How many?”

 

“At least nine, I think.”

 

Teddy nods and goes through the motions of putting in three before moving on.

 

“Milk?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Perfect,” Hilda says before taking a sip of imaginary tea.

 

“Spit it out!  It’s too hot to drink!”

 

Hilda actually clutches her fingers to her lips out of reflex before carefully sitting the cup and saucer back on the table under Teddy’s watchful gaze.

 

“I’ll wait on it too cool then, shall I?”

 

“Mommy?” Teddy’s attention has turned to her now.

 

“Oh. Thank you,” she says, covering her cup with her palm, “but I think I’ll have what Tom’s having.”

 

As she reaches for the full cup sitting in front of her familiar, Hilda looks at her _that_ way again.

 

“ _What_?  You want me to pretend when the real thing is right here?”

 

*********************************

 

“So did you learn anything useful?”

 

“Nothing we didn’t already know.”

 

“There’s a test we can try. Tomorrow, maybe. It’s not absolutely accurate.”

 

“But it’s better than doing nothing and waiting to see if she even survives the transformation.”

 

“Yes. Thank you, Zelda.”

 

*********************************

 

A hand shoots out from under the bed and grabs Sabrina’s ankle.

 

Sabrina screams and Hilda jumps.

 

Zelda laughs along with the girl Hilda is pulling out from under Sabrina’s bed.

 

“I’ve told you and told you to stop that.”  She brushes the dust bunnies from Teddy’s gown.  “It’s not fun if you’re the person being scared.”

 

Zelda has no doubt that is meant for her as well as their daughter.

 

*********************************

 

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

 

Teddy snaps her teeth at Hilda, giggling.

 

“Oh, no. I’m afraid a bug might have snuck in already.”

 

Teddy pats the bed beside her and Hilda isn’t hard to convince.

 

“Just for a bit.”

 

“Auntie Zee?”  Sabrina has scooted close to Teddy. “We can all fit.”

 

“I have some things to take care of before bed.”   _Machinations at the Academy. Letters to be sent. Ground to be held._

 

*********************************

 

When she looks in almost two hours later, the girls are fast asleep but Hilda is not.

 

“Come to bed.”

 

She can see the protest start on her sister’s face even in the dim light.

 

“They are both as safe as we can possibly make them tonight.”

 

*********************************

 

“You never care if there are bugs in our bed.”

 

“Oh, Zelds.  If you only knew the amount of creepy crawlies I have sent into your bed over the years.”

 

*********************************

 

The room suddenly fills with lamp light; she blinks into the floral fabric covering Hilda’s hip.

 

“I can’t sleep.”

 

“So _I_ shouldn’t be allowed to either?”

 

“Don’t pretend you were asleep.”

 

“ _Who_ was pretending?”

 

Hilda pauses.

 

“You are sweet sometimes, sister.”  

 

Zelda feels her cheeks going warm.  

 

She doesn’t like being quite such an open book.  Though, she supposes she is partly to blame for Hilda’s learning when to tell the difference between her genuine outrage and her feigned irritation.  

 

Hilda’s fingers reach out to toy with the strap of her gown.

 

“Take this off.”  

 

Zelda raises an eyebrow.  Hilda shrugs.

 

“I need a distraction.”

 

*********************************

 

“It’s good to know if something might make you ill before you accidentally get sick from it,” Hilda explains.  “Some people are allergic to bees or cats or the pollen. Sometimes it just makes them sneeze and sometimes it makes them very sick and they can’t breathe.” She grins at the little girl perched on the bed in front of her, whose eyes are steadily growing wider.  “But you’ll be just fine.  Don’t worry.”

 

Sabrina, sitting knee to knee with Teddy, takes her hands still sticky from this morning’s chocolate chip pancakes.

 

 “Squeeze my hands. Just in case.”

 

Hilda takes a deep breath and another but her hand still shakes the dropper hovering over Teddy’s naked back.

 

“Let me.”

 

Zelda would rather _do_ something than just stand and watch.

 

The silver liquid falls slowly, as only something heavy with magic can.  She can see them distorted, frozen in the fat drop that puddles near Teddy’s spine.  

 

Teddy screams and the world narrows to that sound.

 

It comes back in fragments.

 

Hilda yelling, “Get it off her!”  

 

Balm cold against her fingers.

 

Hilda chanting, “I’ve got you.”  

 

Sabrina saying what Zelda knows, “It’s not healing.”

 

Hilda lying, “It’ll stop hurting any second now.”

 

*********************************

 

The second is really no more than a minute but Teddy is left red-faced and sucking in loud gulps of air.

 

Her hair sticks to her face as she pushes away from Hilda’s neck.  

 

She looks at Hilda, looks at Zelda, asks to be put down.

 

*********************************

 

A round scald punctuates her back--even after Hilda has tried half a dozen ways to heal it.

 

Teddy asks for a pink band aid, insists that Sabrina be given a purple one for the little bruise her fingers had made on the back of her hand.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be the chapter that makes you realize why I usually write one-shots: my inability to write a plot. Oh, well. One or two more chapters to go.

Teddy wraps Tom in one of Zelda’s best gowns and sits him squarely in the center of the couch, pointedly leaving room for only her and Sabrina to join him.  

 

She stares at a particularly obnoxious cartoon on the television and says she would like pancakes again for lunch--with whipped cream.  

 

They hover on the edges of the room in the most conventional sense.

 

*********************************

 

Salem arrives with preternatural timing to lick the remnants of whipped cream from Teddy’s plate.

 

“Do get that creature off the table.”

 

Zelda will remove him if Sabrina doesn’t but she stills and stares as Teddy pokes a finger into his fur experimentally--and most uncharacteristically for a child prone to squeezing--before leaning in and taking a deep breath.  She buries her face in his fur before he tires of her antics and leaps from the table. 

 

Teddy sits back in her chair and breathes deeply again.

 

“Praise Satan,” she declares.

 

“ _What_?”

 

She stares across the table at her mothers.

 

“I am _not_ allergic to cats. You were wrong.”

 

*********************************

 

“You’re leaving _now_?”

 

“It isn’t the sort of thing you just ring someone up about, is it?”

 

“How long are you planning to be out?”

 

“Not long.  You know you can come with me if you want.”

 

“No.”

 

“That’s what I thought.”

 

*********************************

 

The pink band aid comes off in the tub that night.

 

“Well, it looks much better,” Hilda observes.  She looks to Zelda for confirmation. 

 

It does seem better, less angry and red.  She might be fooling herself to think it appears smaller than it had this morning.

 

“Does it still hurt?” she asks.

 

“I need more bubbles.”

 

When the sudsy cloth Hilda is running over the girl’s shoulders brushes gingerly over the burn, Teddy doesn’t even seem to notice.

 

Zelda laces her fingers together on the side of the tub, leans her chin down on them to face her daughter.

 

“You already have more bubbles than water.”

 

“I need—”

 

“Time to stop taking advantage of the situation.”

 

Affronted, Teddy turns to the softer sale.  

 

“You _have_ milked this long enough, love.”

 

She scowls and stares straight ahead, back to her ignoring them routine that she’d been perfecting for most of the day.

 

“Sabrina won’t let you sleep in her room tonight if you’re this grumpy.”

 

Hilda’s threat results in a too-wide, entirely-too-cheeky-for-her-own-good grin.

 

Zelda ignores the way her knees protest from kneeling near the tub as she stands.

 

“That’s exactly how Vinegar Tom’s face got frozen like that,” she warns.  

 

“Is not.”

 

“Is too. And how would you know?”

 

“He told me what happened.”

 

“He’s a liar and a drunk.”

 

*********************************

 

They sleep in separate beds for the first time in what must be months.   

 

Zelda thinks she should be more bothered by this than she actually is.

 

They can fret a few feet apart just as well as right next to each other.

 

********************************

 

The next day is like sandpaper on her skin, or what she imagines sandpaper feels like.  She isn’t a tradesman. 

 

Everything and everyone is _bothering_ her.  

 

It’s an itch that only her sister can scratch.

 

Or rather one that only _killing_ Hilda had scratched in the past.

 

*********************************

 

“Do you need me to move back in for a while?”  Sabrina’s standing in Hilda’s loose embrace on the front porch.  

 

“Yes,” Teddy answers for her.

 

Though Hilda smiles, she shakes her head at Sabrina’s offer.

 

“You don’t have to do that.  Just please promise that you won’t do anything to put yourself in danger.   _For at least a month_.”

 

“Easier to pack a few bags,” Zelda observes, as she leads Sabrina by the elbow away from Hilda and down the steps.

 

Hilda gives her an odd look.

 

“I’m seeing Sabrina to her car.”

 

She _could_ be the aunt who walks her niece to her car. There’s no reason she couldn’t be. No reason for Hilda to feel so superior.

 

As soon as they are out of earshot, Zelda says, “I know who you were on the phone with earlier.”

 

Sabrina’s lips quirk.  

 

“Exhausting every resource, right?”  

 

And before Zelda can scold, the focus turns back to her.  

 

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t ask Blackwood if you thought he’d be any help. Nick is less evil.”

 

She’s right on both counts; still, she can’t let her go without a warning: “I don’t think I have to remind you how dangerous certain deals can be.”

 

While Sabrina’s former beau may not be the Devil himself, he is his spawn and not to toyed with.

 

“ _I know_ , Aunt Zelda.”

 

“If there’s a price to be paid, Sabrina, it will not be you.  Are we clear?”

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

“I won’t trade one of you for the other.”

 

They both turn to watch the car pulling into their driveway.

 

“Satan give me strength.”

 

Zelda supposes its driver will be an unwelcome fixture now--like black mold or silver fish.

 

When she glances back to Sabrina, the young witch is shaking her head, that ironic smile back again.

 

“You do realize that’s the one thing you _don’t_ have to worry about, right?”

 

“Yes, well--”

 

“I’ll let you know what he says. And I’ll be back in a day or two.”

 

*********************************

 

The three of them look so much like a glossy little family from a magazine--the kind that used to be in ads for nuclear fallout shelters--that Zelda could scorch the wallpaper with a single look.  

 

Teddy is in the floor, kicking her feet.  Hilda and that man are sharing the sofa and a bowl of popcorn.   

 

All that’s missing is a cocktail in his hand.

 

Hilda is even wearing a fucking apron.

 

On her way from their office to the kitchen, she hears Teddy asking, “Why do you keep being in the movie?”

 

Despite her predilection for these giant creature movies (Hilda and Sabrina’s fault)--ants this time--Teddy does have keenly developed taste for one so young (her own influence).

 

“We can fast forward through these bits if you want,” he offers.

 

Zelda would be embarrassed too if she had gone on television in makeup like that.

 

“Oh, no,” Hilda giggles. “Your horror puns are part of the experience.”

 

Zelda rolls her eyes and heads for the scotch.

 

Laughter.

 

Fingers brushing as they both reach for the remote, no doubt.

 

*********************************

 

Hilda comes to the kitchen to refill the popcorn bowl eventually.

 

She raises an eyebrow at Zelda’s drink and the newspaper she knows she finished reading earlier today.

 

“Either come and watch with us or stop stalking through the room.”

 

Zelda’s only answer is to turn her face away when Hilda attempts to feed her a piece of popcorn.

 

*********************************

 

They’ve just finished a cup of tea and a hushed argument about whether or not Cee should be alone with Teddy this soon, when he walks in.

 

“This is awkward.”

 

“ _Finally._  Something we can all agree on.”

 

Hilda kicks her under the table.

 

“She wanted to catch some ants in a jar. I thought she was going to get a piece of candy or something to put in it. She brought this to me.”

 

He sits a bundle in a lace handkerchief on the table between them. They lean forward and peer at its contents.  

 

“Oh.”

 

Hilda’s lips stay frozen in the same shape.

 

Zelda bites the inside of her lip to keep from laughing.

 

Laying pretty as you please over an embroidered “S” is a severed finger.

 

“I’m not squeamish about stray appendages after all these years,” he says. “But she’s five.”

 

“Mr. Oliver’s no doubt,” Hilda explains. “Terrible accident with a table saw.”

 

“Theodora simply has a naturally curious disposition. It’s a sign of intelligence.”

 

Hilda smiles--agrees--until she sees the look on Cerberus’s face.

 

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk with her. _Again_.”

 

*********************************

 

Despite having spent the afternoon together, Hilda and Cerberus spend the better part of half an hour talking alone by his car.

 

He opens his arms and she sinks into them.

 

Hilda had obviously not had to ask _him_ to hold her.

 

They stand that way for nearly a minute before he leaves.

 

*********************************

 

When Hilda finally stops waving goodbye, Zelda is settling into her chair and lighting a cigarette, staring out at the cemetery, one plot in particular.

 

“What a cozy scene that was.”

 

Hands tucked into her pockets, Hilda rocks back on her heels.

 

“So you’re back to eavesdropping?”

 

She sounds more disappointed than angry.  

 

“It’s hardly eavesdropping if you’re standing in our driveway in front of the Dark Lord and everyone.”

 

 _Tacky_.  Arguing on the front porch, this way, but better the corpses in the cemetery hear than Teddy.

 

“Do you realize that I’d go days, weeks even sometimes, without seeing anyone outside of this house?”

 

Zelda inhales. Her lungs burn to match the rest of her. Exhales: “I’m sorry we were such poor company, sister.”

 

Something shakes loose in Hilda. Her hands leave her pockets, don’t even bother to fiddle with the ends of her sleeves.

 

“Most days it was just me and Ambrose and whatever body we had on the slab. That changed when I started working at the bookshop. I actually had a friend. Someone who was _my_ friend and not involved in any of this.”

 

 _Suffocation_. Not her favorite, but a bag around the head, pulled tight, would leave Hilda’s eyes bulging like a caricature of surprise.

 

“And then when The Thirteen attacked.  We were there as a family. But one by one you were all gone. Zelda, you just disappeared—”

 

“You know very well I didn’t up and desert you. Blackwood brought me to the Academy.”  She would _not_ be blamed for that. “I had no choice.”

 

She’s about to ask Hilda if she would have liked for the two babes who were born that night to die right along with Lady Blackwood but Hilda keeps railing as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

 

“One moment you were holding my hand and I knew we could protect the town and the next second you were gone and I was alone and afraid.”

 

 _Burying Hilda alive_. She hasn’t done that since they were children. She didn’t like being unable to see what was happening inside the small coffin she had fashioned.

 

“But Cee came and found me. He held my hands right up until I had to put a spell on him to make him leave.

 

“I kissed him that night. Right there on our steps.”

 

 _Bare hands around her throat until those_ kissable _lips turn blue._

 

Hilda has grown shockingly complacent. Otherwise she would recognize exactly how much danger she is in.

 

“He was never the one who, who started anything. If anything, I used him and I felt horrible about it. I still do. I just needed to _know_.

 

“There is nothing like that left between us. I’ve told him how things are—how happy the three of us are.  But, can’t I just have a bloody friend?”

 

When she stands, Zelda towers over her sister.

 

“And the next time we fight, you’ll go running to _your friend_ who’ll hold your hands and give you babies.”

 

Hilda’s face softens.

 

Zelda _needs_ something slow and messy to revel in. She’ll leave the gore for Hilda to clean up herself.

 

“I know you don’t think so little of me. _Not really._  I’ll never understand why you think so little of yourself.”

 

Hilda doesn’t have a hatchet in her face, deep enough to split skin and muscle, shallow enough to sing out for forty more, so she keeps talking.

 

“Do you know what I learned?   _Before_ he buggered off?”

 

Hilda laughs. Not in that nasty way Zelda would have, but at herself nonetheless.

 

“I don’t need sweet and easy.  I need _you_.  Always you.”

 

She slams the front door after herself, not expecting a response.

 

The timing would have to be precise but the door is heavy enough to crack a skull.

 

*********************************

 

Separate beds again.  

 

Zelda falls asleep thinking of smothering Hilda with her own lavender-scented pillow.

 

That would be _sweet_ and _easy_.

 

*********************************

 

The morning air in Moon Valley is calming.

 

Zelda has long suspected Desmelda charms the entire place somehow.

 

What else would explain Hilda’s arm linked with hers, the way their shoulders bump as they follow the winding trail that only witches can see to the little cabin deep in the wood?  Or how Teddy has run ahead but looks back at them over her shoulder and laughs? 

 

*********************************

 

The girls eye each other the way they do every time they meet.

 

A stranger might mistake them for sisters at a distance, cousins at the very least. (Though Teddy, Zelda fears, is always going to be shorter.)

 

“Let me take a look at that one,” Desmelda says and Hilda and Teddy disappear inside.

 

Zelda sits in the swing and motions for Leticia to join her.

 

Her Night-daughter is reluctant for once.

 

“When she turns into a dog, can I come and live with you?”

 

Zelda raises an eyebrow.

 

“What big ears you have,” she teases.

 

“Come and sit with me.”  

 

It doesn’t take much convincing before the girl is beside her, snuggling into her side.

 

“One day it will be safe and you won’t have to hide. I’m working very hard to make that happen.

 

“I’m sorry she gets to go home with us and you don’t.”  Zelda nods towards the cabin where she can see Desmelda looking into Teddy’s mouth for some reason. “It isn’t fair and I would be angry too.”

 

 _She_ would have killed Teddy.  But Leticia is not her, nor is she like either of her parents or her half-sister.

 

“She isn’t going to turn into a dog and I’ll thank you very much not to say anything like that to her.”  She lays a finger against her lips.  “It’s a secret.”

 

Zelda knows how powerful that word is to someone whose very existence is a secret.

 

“Alright.”

 

Zelda reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small photograph.

 

“I have a new picture of your brother, if you’d like to see.”

 

Lettie narrows her eyes at the boy in the picture, traces a finger over cheekbones exactly like her own.

 

“He doesn’t look nice,” she declares.

 

“He isn’t.”  He is a spoiled brat of the worst sort—but she’d never meant for spiriting Leticia away to make her hate her brother.  To be cautious of him, certainly. 

 

And if it does come to that in the end, at least Leticia will know her enemy.

 

“That isn’t entirely his fault. Surrounded by sycophants and constantly inflated by your father's arrogance and lies.”

 

She’s lost the girl somewhere in that speech.

 

“He doesn’t have someone like Desmelda teaching him the real meaning of our ways.”

 

When Leticia starts to hand the photo back, Zelda stops her.

 

“You can keep it.”

 

She slips it into her pocket.

 

Hilda ushers Teddy out of the door with a “Play nicely please” and Zelda whispers to Lettie, “Now remember, she doesn’t know the woods the way you do.  And no talk about turning into animals.”

 

The girls size each other up again.

 

The stalemate is broken when Lettie says, “I know where a ringneck snake sleeps during the day,” and Teddy demands, “Show me. Please.”

 

As she ducks to enter the cottage, Zelda looks to Hilda.

 

“You _will_ check her pockets before she gets back in the car.”

 

*********************************

 

“When she showed up here,” Desmelda nods at Hilda, “in the middle of the night, I told her it was best to leave you.”

 

Hilda squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.

 

That’s one great mystery of Hilda solved.

 

Zelda’s eyes narrow at the older witch, focus on her good eye.

 

“That is certainly interesting.”  Zelda keeps her voice steady, reminds herself that the witch before her is her elder and Leticia’s guardian.  “However, I fail to see what it has to do with our current problem.”

 

The rest of the visit goes about as well.

 

*********************************

 

“But I’m not sick.”

 

Sitting in the middle of a circle of candles, symbols painted in mud across her cheeks and chest, Teddy is losing patience and Zelda doesn’t blame her.

 

They have tried everything.

 

*********************************

 

“This isn’t a good idea.”

 

This is the last place Zelda _wants_ to be--in the woods with the man who had disrupted her life so thoroughly.

 

“I need to see for myself,” she says again.

 

“I get that.” There’s more sympathy in Cerberus’s voice than she would have expected. “But it’s just not safe.”

 

“I assure you. I will be fine.”

 

He remains unconvinced.

 

With a roll of her eyes, Zelda disappears then reappears, leaning against the same tree.

 

He stares at her, eyes wide.

 

“ _Handy_.”

 

She lights a cigarette as they wait for the moon to rise.

 

*********************************

 

He carefully folds his shirt and tucks it into the rucksack he’s brought with him.

 

He isn’t _unattractive_ like this in the dusk.  That hateful part of her mind that covets her own pain like gold imagines his chest pressed against Hilda’s soft breasts.  Can picture his hands spreading Hilda’s thighs.

 

“I suppose I should thank you for fucking my sister.”

 

“And what, I’m supposed to say, ‘you’re welcome’?”

 

*********************************

 

“Hilda’s more than your sister.”

 

Zelda nods, holds her chin tilted high.  She will not be made to feel ashamed.

 

“She tried to explain. I guess I should have been more surprised.”

 

This is not the reaction Zelda had expected.

 

This conversation was inevitable, but she had assumed it would end in at least minor bloodshed or a hex.

 

“I won’t claim to understand it myself. I have brothers.”  His disgust at that idea is clear. 

 

He studies the setting sun for a moment.

 

“Maybe I’m just picking my battles.”  He smiles at her and toes off his shoes.  “I’m more bothered by the fact you’ll want to give Teddy to Satan when she turns 16.”

 

Zelda doesn’t rise to the bait; she merely says, “My sister certainly has _filled you in_ on many things.”   _In her own peculiar Hilda way._

 

“Look, Zelda. I don’t want to be your enemy. I want to see her. I want to be a part of her life. I figure I need _you_ to be okay with that if it’s going to happen.”

 

“You’re a smart man, for a mortal.”

 

*********************************

 

His fingers hover over his waistband, eyes casting up to Zelda.

 

“You’re not going to turn around, are you?”

 

She smirks.

 

“Shy?”

 

“This is a first for me.”

 

Hilda’s mortal blushes in the last light of day.

 

*********************************

 

“Last chance.”

 

The warning comes through gritted teeth as first one shoulder then the other wrenches out of socket.  His back arches audibly. 

 

He is a marionette, strings jerked by an angry child.

 

*********************************

 

Zelda’s hand falls to her stomach.

 

She disappears.

 

*********************************

 

She reappears in their kitchen.

 

She screams but it has all the satisfaction of yelling underwater.  

 

Breaking everything within her reach feels mildly better.

 

*********************************

 

“Zelda!”

 

Hilda appears in her robe and gown brandishing a large ceramic rabbit above her head.

 

“What the bloody heaven are you doing?”

 

A gasp at her blue language snaps Hilda’s attention to the child staring past her at the destroyed kitchen.  

 

“Didn’t I tell _you_ to wait on the stairs?”

 

Zelda’s chest hitches.  She can’t look away from Teddy.

 

“Be careful,” Hilda warns as her slippers and Teddy’s crunch over the debris. “There’s glass everywhere.”

 

She rights Zelda’s chair and directs her to sit. She drops a kiss to the top of her sister’s head before starting her search through cabinets.

 

Each step gets bolder, louder, as Teddy crosses the room and sidles up to Hilda’s chair.

 

She stares back at Zelda.

 

Hilda finds a glass and a dusty bottle of something expensive and potent and sits them in front of Zelda.

 

“Start on that until I get back.”

 

She pulls a plate of cookies from nowhere and a glass of milk from the refrigerator.

 

“Come on, bug.  You’ll have these upstairs.”

 

Teddy plucks a cookie from the plate and slides it across the table in Zelda’s direction.

 

As she leaves the kitchen, her fingers reach to the counter top as she passes and knocks an already-cracked plate to the floor.

 

“We won’t have anything left to eat off of at this rate,” Hilda fusses.

 

*********************************

 

“Where were you tonight?”

 

 Zelda studies the knots and whorls in the wood of their table beneath her palms.  Her dress is kicked somewhere beneath the table.

 

Hilda mumbles something in Latin as she temporarily disappears into the gown she’s tugging over her head.

 

The room goes hazy with magic.

 

“I should make you clean all of this up for once.”

 

Hilda’s voice is teasing but when she sweeps Zelda’s hair from her face, all Zelda sees is worry.

 

Hilda wraps her arms around her sister, holds her tight.  She presses her mouth to Zelda’s spine.

 

“What do you need, my love?”

 

Zelda’s answer is to slide her hands up the wood, to bend herself obscenely over the table.  

 

She looks over her shoulder, into Hilda’s blue eyes so she’ll understand.

 

“Like you mean it.”

 

Hilda’s hand settles too gently just above her left stocking.

 

“I always mean it.”

 

Zelda’s chest clenches.

 

“Please.”  Her head falls forward onto the table.  “I’ll let you heal it all later.”

 

That’s been Hilda’s stubborn stipulation since the first time Zelda said “harder” and meant “tear me apart.”

 

*********************************

 

“ _We_ made her here.”

 

“ _We_ did.”

 

*********************************

 

She leans forward enough to watch her sister work.  Her legs are spread wide; Hilda’s fingers are slick with healing balm.  

 

The bites and bruises are gone, along with the scratches and gouges.  

 

All that remains is for Hilda to slide her fingers back into her stinging cunt and make right what she had so deliciously wrecked.

 

*********************************

 

Upstairs, Zelda strips Hilda back down to her blue knickers with the purple lace trim--so very Hilda and sexier for it--watches her settle back into their bed, and finishes undressing herself.

 

In the moonlit room, she maps and remaps Hilda’s body.  First with her fingertips then with her mouth. 

 

Zelda could swear Hilda almost comes when she lets the ends of her hair dance across her hip.  

 

Hilda does come when Zelda’s teeth rake across her clit.

 

*********************************

 

They are both more asleep than awake when Zelda murmurs, “I’m sorry, sister.”

 

“For the kitchen?”

 

Zelda tilts her face until she can whisper into Hilda’s ear:  “I love you.”

 

Hilda giggles into Zelda’s hair.

 

“You must really be sorry about the kitchen.”

 

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

 

*********************************

 

“Are we really talking about doing this?”

 

Sabrina is incredulous to her left; Hilda is livid to Zelda’s right.

 

“ _No_. We aren’t.”

 

Zelda’s suggestion goes over as well as she would have predicted.

 

The kitchen is clean at least. Less glassware is on display than in days before but Sabrina doesn’t seem to notice. More likely she has simply gotten used to seeing the family’s collection dwindle with every tantrum.

 

“ _Zelda_.”

 

The cup trembling in Hilda’s grasp is not likely to survive this conversation.

 

“This isn't killing me.  You’re talking about murdering our child.”

 

“The Cain pit can cure her.”

 

She is certain.

 

Desmelda’s words had taunted her since that day in her cabin:  “Kill the wolf without killing her. And do it before it takes hold.”  She’d said it as if that were the simplest of feats.

 

And maybe it was.

 

“Has it ever _not_ worked in the past?” Sabrina asks.

 

“Do you think I would even entertain this idea if it had ever failed?”

 

It is practically a Spellman-family tradition at this point, which she needs to make Hilda remember.

 

“We were her age when we started playing with the Cain pit.”

 

“Only _you_ call it playing!”  

 

The cup collides dangerously with the table.  She looks unsure of her next move beyond standing up.  

 

“We’re not talking about this anymore.”

 

Her hands sweep through her hair.  

 

“We’ll find another way. We have time.”

 

*********************************

 

Sabrina follows Hilda out onto the front steps, settles just a step away.

 

Zelda has only to push the curtain aside with her finger to see them clearly.

 

“How many times did the Cain pit resurrect you?”

 

She can’t remember Hilda ever brushing off Sabrina’s hand the way she does when their niece reaches for her shoulder.

 

“It will work.”

 

“You don’t know that. And _you_ don’t know what it’s like.”

 

Hilda has almost never raised her voice at Sabrina, the few exceptions being when she has come to Zelda’s own defense.

 

“You sent that poor, _horrible_ girl down there without even thinking. You’re as bad as Zelda sometimes.”

 

Zelda jumps as someone touches her hand.

 

“Is Mummy mad about the dishes?  You shouldn’t have broke so many.”

 

“You are quite the snoop, aren’t you?”  

 

Satan help them when she learned to move through walls.

 

She finds the spot in Teddy’s ribs that sets off a fit of laughter.

 

“Who cares about _dishes_?   _I_ don’t care about dishes.”  

 

She tickles until Teddy is doubled over next to her, laughing loud enough to drown out the voices from the porch.

 

“Do _you_ care about dishes?”

 

********************************

 

“I need your help.”

 

These are not words she comes by easily.

 

“Aunt Hilda said no.” Sabrina worries the corner of the rug in Zelda’s office with the toe of her shoe.  “ _I know_. Usually that doesn’t matter to me, but, Aunt Zelda, she _really_ said no.”

 

“Sabrina, I simply need her out of the way. I’m not asking you to—”

 

“I _wanted_ to kill Agatha.”  Sabrina’s eyes are dark; a flush rises to her checks. “When I think about what she did—about Tommy and everything that happened after—I could _happily_ slit her throat again and again.”

 

Sabrina crosses her arms over her chest.

 

“You really think you can do this? To _her_?  Because I couldn’t, even knowing that she’ll be back within minutes.”

 

“You’re both being irrational.”

 

“That’s not--”

 

“ _I saw what happens_.”  

 

Her voice is too loud for the small room; it leaves taunting echos.  

 

“Fine.”  Sabrina drops into a chair.  “I’ll come up with some reason to keep her away from the house.”

 

She sighs.  

 

“She could end up hating both of us.”

 

As if Zelda didn’t _absolutely_ know that.

 

“That is extremely likely.”

 

********************************

 

It takes only a split second for Sabrina’s mind to slip.

 

Aunt Hilda is always so careful about the family’s privacy, but--

 

“ _Sabrina_?”

 

She wasn’t expecting this.

 

“I forgot something.”

 

It sounds ridiculous even as she puts the car into reverse.

 

Hilda doesn’t need to read her mind.

 

A grave just large enough is dug.  A shovel left to stand sentinel.

  
“ _What has she done?”_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, you'll forgive me for killing Teddy now. :) There's just one more chapter after this one. Feeling proud of that. I notoriously abandon multi-chapter fics.

She is a coward.  

 

Otherwise she wouldn’t still be sitting on the bottom of the stairs pierced by the sound of sister grief and weighed down by the small body in her lap.

 

The logistics had been her undoing--not of the act but of the after.  

 

Coated in a new game and served in a favorite tea cup, death came quick and quiet, tasted sweet.  

 

She’d curled around her, listened to her heart slow and stop--remembered the butterfly-swift rhythm of that heart the first time she heard it beat within Hilda.  

 

Zelda had pitched Hilda in head first without a second glance, had tossed her in, sometimes in pieces, but this _paralyzed_ her.  How could she drop the child she’d held so carefully since her first breath?

 

And now Hilda is here and Hilda is seeing.  

 

Both of them will see and not be able to unsee.

 

*********************************

 

“ _Give her to me_!”

 

Zelda tightens her hold on the blanket-wrapped form, begs, “Sister, don’t.”

 

Sabrina is chorusing apologies.

 

“ _She was mine and not yours!  You had no right_ — _no right_.”

 

*********************************

 

“Sabrina, take your aunt back inside.”

 

Hilda is near the edge of the pit, Teddy’s head cradled in her lap. She looks up from too-blue lips long enough to say, “No.”  

 

“You will _not_ watch this.”

 

Hilda rises.  Zelda squares her shoulders.

 

Fists clench at their sides. Foreheads furrow.

 

A stalemate as usual.

 

“I’m sorry, Aunt Hilda.”

 

Hilda is gone, deposited safely unconscious to their room.

 

“Go inside, Sabrina.”

 

“You shouldn’t--”

 

“If you want to help, go check on her.”

 

She has to do this now.

 

*********************************

 

Zelda starts when a hand falls to her shoulder.

 

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

 

Sabrina takes the shovel from her blistered fingers.

 

*********************************

 

The pit is filled again when Hilda appears.  

 

She stands well away from them as they wait.

 

*********************************

 

“I’ll never forgive you.”

 

“I won’t either.”

 

*********************************

 

The freshly turned earth trembles.

 

The family drops to their knees.  

 

As soon as a pair of small fingers break through the ground, they start to dig.

 

It’s like pulling her sister’s ghost from the grave.  

 

******************************

 

Hilda clutches Teddy to her chest, rocks her--“It’s okay, my love. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”--rubs her back as she coughs.  Peppers her dirty face with kisses.  Wipes carefully with the sleeve of her cardigan at the red-rimmed eyes squinting against the light.

 

Zelda reaches out, needing to feel her daughter’s skin warm again, but Hilda yanks the little girl back.

 

“Don’t touch her.”  She stands, works to get Teddy onto her hip.  “Don’t you dare.”

 

******************************

 

“Aunt Hilda? Don’t we need to see if it worked?”

 

“I think she’s been through enough tonight.”

 

******************************

 

Zelda listens at the door as Hilda bathes Teddy.

 

Sabrina skulks against the other wall. 

 

They avoid looking at each other.

 

“ _Squeeze yours eyes closed so the soap doesn’t burn.  Good, girl_.”

 

“ _Was I dead?”_

 

“ _You were.  For an hour or two_.”

 

“ _Do you want to talk about it?  I know how scared you must have been. Waking up down there--and sometimes the before is worse_.”

 

Zelda’s eyes close.

 

“ _Why don’t I have the big cut?”_

 

“ _What_?”  

 

Her eyes open to look at Sabrina in confusion. 

 

Sabrina frowns and traces a “Y” across her chest.

 

“ _Oh. We knew you’d be coming right back to us_.”

 

*********************************

 

Teddy, bundled in a towel, is clearly not letting go of Hilda anytime soon.  Her legs are wrapped around her mother’s waist, arms locked around her neck.

 

Hilda shifts her just enough to reach into her pocket.

 

She hands the vial to Zelda.

 

“Go ahead. I need to know if all of this was for nothing.”

 

Recognizing the vial, Teddy shouts, “No!” and tries to squirm out of Hilda’s arms.

 

“Don’t do it!”

 

Zelda looks to Hilda, makes no effort to slow her tears or to curb her smile.

 

She buries her face into her daughter’s bubblegum-clean hair and whispers, “It’s already done, my love.”

 

She feels Hilda’s hand on the back of her head, fingers clutching tight into her hair.

 

“All better.”

 

*********************************

 

“I’ve spoken with Ambrose. He’ll have the London house ready for the two of you. You always liked it there and I thought you might—Or I could leave. Stay on grounds.”

 

“I don’t need you to make arrangements for us--and I don’t want to disrupt her life any more than it already has been.  We can be civil.  Even when we don’t feel it.  We’ve done it plenty of times before.”

 

*********************************

 

They are being “civil” over dinner when Teddy leans over and bites Zelda’s hand.

 

“Teddy!  Let go right now.”

 

It takes Hilda’s shout and the screech of her chair against the floor as she rises to make her daughter unclench her jaw.

 

Zelda holds her throbbing hand to her chest and collects herself as Hilda kneels beside Teddy’s chair.

 

“Explain yourself, young lady.”

 

“Why would you do something like that, love?”

 

Teddy’s arms cross her chest.  She slumps into her chair and mumbles, “I have to eat too.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’ll rot if I don’t eat people.”

 

Zelda silently curses George Romero.  

 

“Theodora, do you think you are a zombie?”

 

Dark curls bob as she nods.

 

“Darling, you aren’t a zombie. You are alive and perfect.”  Hilda presses a kiss to Teddy’s forehead.  “And you do not have to eat people-- _ever_.”  

 

Hilda spares a glance to Zelda.

 

That would have been one of so many conversations for another day. Before Zelda forfeited any right to argue with Hilda about Teddy’s future.

 

“The Cain pit,” Zelda explains, “where I buried you--it does not make you a zombie.”

 

“I’ve been in there loads of times and I’m not a zombie, am I?”  

 

Hilda grins but Teddy remains skeptical at best.

 

*********************************

 

Zelda is brushing her hair at her vanity when she hears the familiar creek of her door.

 

Teddy lingers in the doorway instead of bounding in and making herself at home.

 

“Are you mad at me?”  

 

“For biting me?”

 

Teddy shakes her head.

 

“Come here.”

 

Zelda pulls her into her lap, smooths her curls back from her face.

 

“What is it? Hmm? Why do you think I’m mad?”

 

“You don’t read to me.”

 

“I can read to you tonight if you want me to. I thought perhaps Hilda would read to you since she’s staying with you.”

 

Teddy stares at her.  Clearly there is something else she wants to say.

 

“Whisper it if you have to,” Zelda suggests.

 

Teddy cups a hand to Zelda’s ear.

 

“You made me dead.”

 

Her arms pull Teddy tighter against her chest.

 

“I did.”

 

It takes longer than she would like before she can speak again.

 

“I didn’t _want_ to hurt you. I didn’t do it to be mean or because I was mad at you. I needed to make you better.  And the only way to do that was to hurt you. 

 

“I am sorry. _So sorry_. I will _never_ do it again.

 

“You believe me, don’t you?”

 

“Yes.”  Her hand has crept into Zelda’s hair, fingers starting to twirl. “Will you read to me?”

 

Zelda swipes at her cheek, smiles.

 

“I don’t know that we have any books in here that you will like.”

 

“That one.”

 

Teddy is not pointing to Zelda’s Satanic Bible.

 

Zelda laughs.

 

*********************************

 

Teddy’s sound asleep, after two chapters of a much-abridged version of _Passion's Proud Captive_ , when Hilda appears at the door.

 

“She’s here. I’m sorry.” Zelda’s babbling--trespassing in Hilda’s territory--on the verge of tears again. “She wanted to know why I was mad at her. _Why I killed her_.”  She swings her legs off the bed and turns to collect the sleeping child.  “I’ll take her back to her room.”

 

“No. Let her stay.”

 

Hilda kisses Teddy’s forehead, straightens the collar of the her little pink gown, then stands, watching her chest rise and fall.  Watching her live.

 

Zelda had been doing the same thing moments ago.

 

Zelda lays back down, careful not to wake Teddy.  When she reaches to tuck the sheet around Teddy’s shoulders, Hilda notices the perfect mold of baby teeth cast onto the back of Zelda’s hand.

 

“She really got you.”

 

“I deserve far worse.”

 

That Hilda doesn’t correct her only solidifies the idea.

 

*********************************

Sabrina’s room becomes less a tribute to their niece’s tenure in the house and more a shrine to Hilda’s quiet resentment.  

 

Everyday something else of Hilda’s disappears from their room--on Wednesday, a worn makeup brush; today, the wardrobe is somber silk and wool, half a row of floral dresses missing.

 

Hilda catches her staring into the empty space.  

 

Instead of an explanation or even a sad smile, her fingers stroke Zelda’s back through her blouse.

 

She stands perfectly still lest she remind Hilda of her transgressions and break whatever spell her sister is under.

 

Hilda touches her with purpose and Zelda swallows back the urge to beg her not to stop--even when she realizes what that purpose is.

 

Pride moves her out of Hilda’s reach.

 

“Show me your back.”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“ _Spite_?”

 

Hilda doesn’t shrink back, is dug in about this.

 

*********************************

 

Pearl buttons give way to Zelda’s dark fingernails.  She turns--but not before catching the hint of fear in Hilda’s eyes--and shrugs the blouse off her shoulders until it falls to her waist.

 

“Are you quite satisfied?”

 

She has nothing to hide so fingers ghost over the unmarked planes of her back.  

 

Hilda’s palm comes to rest over the curve of her hip.

 

“Would I find damage anywhere else?”

 

“What a loaded question, sister.”

 

*********************************

 

Zelda fingers the broken string she had nearly tripped over.

 

“Were you trying to make me fall and break my neck?” she snaps at the little girl peeking around the banister at her.

 

“My knot wasn’t good.”

 

Torn between reactions--laugh, cry--Zelda just sits and slides her heel back into her shoe.

 

“Come here, please.”

 

Teddy climbs the stairs to sit next to her.

“I’ve told you why I had to do what I did. I can only hope that one day you understand, that you can forgive me.”

 

Zelda frames Teddy’s face in her palms.

 

“I love you.”

 

Teddy mimics her, small hands pressing into Zelda’s cheeks.

 

“I love you too, mommy.”

 

Something in Teddy’s eyes—so very like Hilda’s—for once reminds Zelda of her own.

 

“You’re going to try again, aren’t you?”

 

Teddy grins.

 

“I suppose that’s only fair. But there are rules.  Now, you’re like Sabrina,” Zelda knew the mention of her sister would guarantee Teddy’s rapt attention.  “You’re like your sister in that you aren’t very good at following rules but these are important. Your mummy or Sabrina must be home too and not just the two of us.

 

“I don’t think you could dig a grave that deep in time,” Zelda says mostly to herself. “And please make sure you use a more effective means than a string on the stairs. That might just break my leg.”

 

******************************

Darkness.  

 

Nerves sing.

 

Her chest moves to pull in air but finds none.

 

Claw and climb.  The compulsion is overwhelming.

 

******************************

 

As she pushes herself to lay gasping against the ground, Zelda’s first thought is that Teddy’s knot-tying skills had improved at an astonishing rate.

 

******************************

 

There is no dignified way to walk away from a grave she has just crawled out of.  Especially not with Hilda watching her from the steps.

 

They are the same height with Hilda on the bottom stair and Zelda barefoot.

 

It occurs to Zelda that she would like nothing more than to kiss Hilda this way. The unlikelihood of that ever happening again weighs heavier than the grave dirt on her dress.

 

“There are times that I think she is more your child than mine.”

 

How many times had Hilda said that before with a wink or an elbow to Zelda’s ribs?

 

The accusation stings like a slap now.

 

“Where is she?”

 

“In her room.”

 

Hilda’s hand falls against her chest, feeling her heartbeat.   

 

Zelda is struck by the dirt beneath her sister’s nails.

 

“She swears _you_ told her this would be okay.”

 

“I did.”

 

Hilda pulls her hand away, looks at it in disgust.  She scrubs it across the front of her apron.

 

“You were right about London.  It’s a good idea after all.”

 

**************************

 

“ _Make her understand that this will never happen again_.”

 

Hilda had been clear.

 

As soon as Teddy sees Zelda, tears that had obviously dried, start again, more out of outrage and shock than fear or remorse.

 

“Mummy yelled at me.”

 

“I know.” Zelda tucks a curl behind Teddy’s ear and tries to smile. “She’s more angry at me than you, though.”

 

Teddy’s forehead furrows.

 

“She shook me.”

 

Zelda blinks back tears; grit burns under her eyelids.

 

“I’m sure she’s sorry. And you look like you survived.”

 

Teddy’s face turns red.  

 

A Mary-Janed foot stomps.

 

“Yell at _her_!”

 

“No.” Zelda pulls her close, ignoring the filth on her dress. “No more yelling today.  Not from _any_ of us.”

 

She leans back and cups her chin.

 

“Now, are _we_ quite even?”

 

“Can I have the worms in your hair?”

 

“I’ll save them for you.”

 

******************************

 

Sabrina comes to drive them to the airport.

 

At least there is small comfort in that.  

 

If Hilda had suggested Cerberus . . .

 

*********************************

 

The grass wets Zelda’s stockings as she faces Teddy eye-to-eye.

 

“The house in London is even older than this one. There are so many places to hide. You will love it.”

 

And Teddy _will_ love it. _Would have_ loved it just as much had they gone together as a family sometime in the future.

 

Right now, Zelda needs the little girl to agree to get in the car.

 

“Why won’t you come with us?” Teddy whines.

 

The tears that had come and gone since breakfast return full force.

 

Zelda wipes one apple check then the other, lies: “I have to stay here--and take care of Tom and Sabrina, the Academy--but I will miss you terribly every day.”

 

Teddy flings her arms around her neck. She whispers into Zelda’s hair, “I don’t want to go.”

 

She could teleport them both to the Academy and set up a wall seven-spells thick before Hilda and Sabrina realized where they had gone.

 

Instead she whispers in the same way Teddy had, “You’ll be back soon. I promise. I love you and your mummy too much for this to be forever.”

 

*********************************

 

Teddy takes a step to Hilda then drops nearly to the ground before she’s caught.  

 

“Stop, now, love.”  

 

Hilda has no patience today for Teddy’s legless act that is sometimes a game, more often a fit. It is very much a fit right now, one that has Hilda struggling to wrangle her flailing arms.  

 

“I said I was sorry for killing mommy!”

 

Hilda is seconds away from dropping the we-are-going-on-a-fabulous-vacation facade, that is frankly fooling no one, and outright crying in front of their daughter when Zelda catches Teddy’s eyes and demands, “Stand up, Theodora.”

 

She stands herself, tugs her skirt back into order.  

 

“You are a Spellman.  We do not cower.” 

 

*********************************

 

She is a liar--sliding down the back of the door, a sobbing mess on the front rug and a disappointment to generations of sterner stuff.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. The last chapter of my exercise in self-indulgence. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it and everyone who left reviews. Those are gold.

****

A week goes by with no word and she gives in.

 

She has to know if she is going to storm a house across the sea and splatter the sitting room red with a certain werewolf’s blood.

 

She can give Hilda space.

 

She will not give her family to this mortal.

 

But he’s there wiping down tables when she raps the back of her fingers against the door.

 

“Have you heard from them?”

 

“Hilda called a couple of days ago.”

 

“How did she sound?”

 

“Why don’t you sit down?  Let me get you a coffee.”

 

She hasn’t come to socialize.

 

“I have espresso and I promise it’s good.”

 

******************************

 

A month goes by.

 

She sips mediocre espresso.

 

“Ambrose always answers when I call,” she says.  “Though, he puts Teddy on the line.”

 

“I’m going to have to raise the prices here to pay the phone bill.”

 

“Has Hilda told you what her plans are?  When she might be coming back?”

 

“No.  But it sounds like she’s planning to stay for a while.”

 

He really is useless, and she doesn’t go back.

 

******************************

 

More months go by.

 

******************************

 

“This is the worst.”

 

As Solstice’s go, Zelda would be inclined to agree.

 

“You could have gone to England to be with the rest of the family.”

 

“So could you.”

 

Sabrina looks at her _that_ way again-- _Just go and bring them home_ , she’d kept prodding, as if it were that simple.

 

“She doesn’t want me there.”

 

“My invitation was half-hearted at best.”

 

What a pair they make--dressed for bed and halfway to drunk before the sun has even gone down.

 

******************************

 

“I was once responsible for Harvey having to kill his own brother, but _this_ was the last straw?”

 

She listens to Sabrina’s rant and _tries_ to be sympathetic.  

 

“Am I apologizing for just this?   _No_. I have to apologize again for everything I’ve ever done.”

 

Zelda laughs from behind her tumbler.  

 

“What a list that would be in my case.”

 

_Where would she even start?_  Pinching Hilda in her cradle?  Poking mother’s stomach to make the as-yet-unnamed interloper do something even mildly interesting like kick?

 

“I even told Harvey that what we really wanted was for all of us to be together. Nick really likes him.”

 

Zelda wonders if it is wrong to feel mildly relieved that at least she isn’t _the_ most clueless Spellman in regard to relationships.

 

“Hard to imagine that not going over well.”

 

******************************

 

“Well, Auntie Zee, your attempts at decorating might pale a little in comparison to Aunt Hilda’s, but they certainly are interesting.”

 

“Do tell.”

 

“I especially like the box you appear to have kicked over and left.”

 

“The key is to make it look effortless.”

 

She should have cleaned that up.  She should have never brought the damned box down from the attic in the first place.

 

“I did think about putting up a tree. Entertained the idea that they might come home.”

 

It’s the holidays and Teddy’s birthday and she’d stupidly held out hope.

 

“But that’s something that Hilda always did with you and Ambrose and then Teddy.”

 

“That would be when the box of irreplaceable family mementos got dented?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Sabrina raises her glass, stretches across the space between them to clink it against Zelda’s.

 

“All I have to say is, Satan bless us. All two of us.”

 

********************************

 

Zelda’s suggestion of “hair of the dog” sends Sabrina running to the kitchen sink.

 

“Sabrina. _Really_.”

 

She squints into the ice box and tries to convince herself that she isn’t feeling queasy as well.

 

“I wish Hilda were here. You know I can’t abide the sound of your vomiting.  Do try not to get it in your hair.”

 

She finally finds the ice bag she’s been looking for in the mess of unmarked containers and brings it to her throbbing forehead.

 

“Glad you’ve missed me for such a good reason, sister.”

 

She’d have sworn she was in the midst of some sort of Dickensian visitation if Sabrina didn’t lift her head long enough to say, “I’m so glad you’re here,” in the direction of the ghost of sisters past.  

 

“So am I.”  Hilda, very real and very much standing in their kitchen, rubs Sabrina’s back.  “Just keep your head over the garbage disposal, opossum. Get it all out.”

 

Sabrina has no problem following her directions.

 

Hilda looks to her and while she wouldn’t say she looks happy to see her, something has definitely changed since she left.

 

Zelda looks from Hilda to the space around her.

 

“She’s not with me,” Hilda answers before she asks. “She’s in town having breakfast with Cee.”  

 

So that was the state of things now.

 

Hilda turns her attention back to their niece who seems to have finally emptied her stomach of last night’s celebration.

 

“Wash your face.”  

 

As Hilda cares for Sabrina as if it were any other day, Zelda stares, is greedy just for the sight of her.

 

“Now go upstairs and take a shower,” Hilda orders.

 

She can see Sabrina start to argue--she’s missed Hilda too--but Sabrina glances in her direction and shuffles out of the kitchen.

 

“I’m not helping you with your hangover,” Hilda calls after her.

 

“Kindly collect whatever you came for and leave.  My head can’t possibly take a confrontation right now.”

 

She folds herself into her chair and brings the ice back to her head.

 

Hilda doesn’t respond.  She opens a cabinet, stretches up to reach the top shelf.  She fiddles about with something in a jar. 

 

********************************

 

Zelda jumps when cool fingers rub into her temples.

 

It’s possible she literally exhales pain in her next breath.  Her eyes drift closed; her head drops back against Hilda’s breasts.

 

********************************

 

None of that softness is in Hilda’s eyes as she opens her own to Hilda staring down at her.

 

“Start explaining the state of the two of you.”

 

Her blinding headache is gone, but she still glares at her sister, who settles into her chair as if it hadn’t sat empty and taunting all these months.

 

“You did that just so you could fight with me.”

 

_“Are_ we fighting?”

 

“Sabrina and Harvey have broken up.” It’s easier to focus on Sabrina’s mishaps than try to untangle her answer to Hilda’s question.

 

“What did she do?” Hilda asks.  There’s a tinge of excitement in her voice, like she’s missed this.

 

Zelda raises an eyebrow.

 

“Ahh.”  Hilda looks toward the ceiling.  “It was a who.”

 

Zelda nods.  If Hilda wants any more details, she can ask Sabrina.  She just hopes she’s there to see Hilda’s face.

 

If Hilda is even planning to be here that long.

 

“And your excuse?”

 

_The nerve_.

 

“You’ve been gone for nearly six months and I’ve spoken to you exactly three times.”

 

Those conversations, if you could even call them that, had not gone well.

 

Teddy had unexpectedly handed the phone to Hilda the first time. It had felt strangely formal like noting down intake information for a body.

 

Oh, she’d tried astral projection too, but the house was covered in wards. Being bounced off repeatedly and sure that Hilda knew it each time was too humiliating.

 

Once, Hilda had actually agreed to talk to her.  Unfortunately, Zelda had yelled, made a number of threats, and been hung up on.

 

The third time Zelda had barely spoken, had just listened to that beloved accent, liqueur thickened, and glanced at the grandfather clock to calculate the time difference.

 

“There was this wretched little part of me that was proud of her. That she wasn’t like _me_. Wasn’t going to roll over and be the victim over and over again.

 

“But, Zelda, after everything, she couldn’t have been any more a _monster_ than she was standing there then at the bottom of the stairs.

 

“Those can’t be her only choices.

 

“ _Zelda_?”

 

“I can only hope you won’t wind up publicly nude somewhere when you have our daughter to tend to.”

 

“ _My_ daughter.”  

 

The dial tone again.

 

Teddy had called the next day, _mummy_ having dialed for her. It was half-hearted as apologies go but made the sting in her back a little less necessary as she leaned against the wall and listened to Teddy explain how she had in fact gotten stuck between floors in this _new_ old house and how Hilda had boarded up the dumbwaiter, so it didn’t happen again.

 

That was two months ago.

 

“I’ve yet to see my--” She stops herself because if Hilda denies her now, she will reach across the table and strangle her.  “I haven’t seen Teddy in all that time either.  You could have at least brought her with you today.”

 

“Would you really have wanted her to see you both like this?”

 

When Hilda reaches for her hand, she says, “Don’t,” but Hilda catches it anyways.

 

“I’m sorry.  We should have left sooner.  I meant for it to be a surprise.”

 

When Hilda’s thumb strokes slow arches over the inside of her wrist, she says, “Please don’t make it worse,” but can’t look away from where they are touching.

 

“I’m trying to make it better if you’ll let me.”

 

She’s watching Hilda’s eyes now, notices a faint line at the corner of one that was not there before.

 

“Teddy wants to come home. I want to come home, Zelds.

 

“Do you want us to come home?”

 

“Do you even have to ask?”

 

Her voice is obviously sharper than Hilda expected, so she amends, “More than anything.”

 

******************************

 

“Mommy!”

 

The sound brings Zelda to her knees.

 

******************************

 

She wraps her in her arms and breathes her in as Teddy clings to her neck.

 

She kisses her nose and cheeks, her eyelashes and forehead.

 

“Don’t cry.” Teddy’s hands wipe across Zelda’s cheeks.  “We brought you presents.  But it’s _my_ birthday,” Teddy clarifies lest there be any misunderstanding.

 

“Of course, it is. It’s just, Vinegar Tom has missed you so. The whole time you were gone all he did was sit in his basket and sulk.  He was really rather pathetic.”

 

“I missed you too,” Teddy whispers.

 

******************************

 

Hilda knocks on her door as if this hadn’t been her room too for most of their lives.

 

“She’s all settled back in her room.”

 

She hands Zelda a book.

 

“We’re in the middle of this one.”  

 

_Peter Pan_.

 

Zelda wonders how long it will take Vinegar Tom to start ticking.  She wonders if Hilda had shown Teddy the statue in Kensington Gardens.  She wonders—

 

“Where are _you_ going to settle?”

 

“Here.  In _my_ bed,” Hilda clarifies.

 

“And then we’ll see,” follows Zelda out the door.

 

******************************

 

Lulled by the rhythm of Hilda’s faint snores and the knowledge that Teddy is right across the hall, Tom at the foot of her bed, she falls asleep faster than she has in months.

 

A few feet between them is infinitely better than an ocean.

 

******************************

 

She wakes in the dark to someone shaking her arm.

 

“There are bugs in my bed.”

 

“You’d better sleep here then.”

 

Teddy clambers into the bed as Zelda pulls the covers back.

 

******************************

 

Puffs of breath in her face. A hand firmly tangled in her hair. A knee in her stomach—she’s drifting off again when Hilda’s voice startles her.

 

“You know how you wish you could take back the things you said to me then?”

 

“I do.”

 

“I didn’t mean what I said.”

 

She isn’t sure what she wants to hear and be absolved of until Hilda says it.

 

“She’s ours.”

 

Zelda buries the sound that forces its way out of her throat into her pillow, waits long enough to ensure her voice won’t betray her, “Of course, she is.  She has my chin.”

 

 

**Nine Years and 364 Days Later**

 

There’s something about this time of year.

 

Hilda’s fingers taste like sugar when she pulls them into her mouth.

 

She’s right on the edge of a shelf and an orgasm when Hilda suddenly asks, “Do you smell smoke?” and leaves her standing there--mouth agape and skirt all but ruined.

 

Hilda fans the smoke away from the oven and its charred contents.

 

“That was Teddy’s cake,” she snaps, as if Zelda had been the one to drag _her_ into the pantry.

 

The table is covered in pans and potholders.

 

“You already have all of these. How many layers can it possibly require?”  

 

“ _Sixteen_.  She’s sixteen tomorrow.”

 

Zelda takes a quick count.

 

“Just cut these in half.”

 

******************************

 

The cake is a masterpiece, even if a bit oddly shaped.

 

******************************

 

“We won’t be disappointed if you change your mind.”

 

She’s lost track of how many times Hilda has said that in the last month.  The comment surely doesn’t require any response from her so she continues to read about the bitcoin market in Beijing.

 

“Isn’t that right?   _Zelds_?”

 

Drug into the conversation yet again, she folds the paper and smiles at her sister.

 

“I’m sure we’ll find another use for the 20 pints of human blood we have downstairs.”

 

Hilda’s nose wrinkles in distaste.

 

“That much?”

 

Teddy’s nose wrinkles with glee.

 

“Of course.  It isn’t everyday my daughter joins the Church of Night.”

 

While Hilda had worried over what color streamers to get for Teddy’s birthday, Zelda had made all the arrangements for her Dark Baptism tonight.

 

“Fine,” Hilda declares.  “I’ll be there with bells on.”

 

“Please say there aren’t literally bells on your dress.”

 

“Don’t be silly, bug. I’ve only sewn those to yours.”

 

******************************

 

Theodora Amaris Spellman’s Dark Baptism goes off with only one small hitch.

 

The High Priestess doesn’t typically pause and say, “Darling?” during the vows when the initiate appears too dazed to answer.  

 

Nor does the High Priestess’s sister start forward only to be halted by the initiate answering, “I do,” perhaps louder than strictly necessary.

 

But that is what happens.

 

They’d returned to a much older, _purer_ version of the ceremony. In Sabrina’s words, it was far less “creepy uncle” than her own vows--which to Zelda was a very strange expression, especially since Sabrina had never had an uncle, much less one that was creepy.

 

Parts of it remain the same, of course.

 

Teddy flinches but stays silent as the blade cuts through her palm.  Hilda gasps for her.

 

She grins up at Zelda after she signs her name with a flourish in the Book of the Beast.

 

******************************

 

“I’m so proud of you.”  

 

Hilda, face streaked with mascara, squeezes her for the dozenth time that day.

 

“So am I.  And, yes,” she says to Hilda, “I would have been equally proud of her if she hadn’t joined the Church tonight.”

 

Obviously, that’s a lie but it doesn’t hurt to bend the truth now and again for Hilda’s sake.  

 

Zelda tucks an errant curl--a hazard of Hilda’s latest hug--behind Teddy’s ear, as is her habit.

 

“Go and have fun but you’re back at the house by daybreak.”

 

“That’s a very long time for--”

 

“Don’t worry.”  Teddy cuts Hilda off.  “I won’t do anything you didn’t do at your Baptism.”

 

As their teenage daughter walks away, it occurs to Zelda that she isn’t certain which of them she was referring to.  

 

Not that it really matters in the end.

 

While Hilda had left her Baptism as undefiled as she had entered it, Zelda’s head had been beneath her gown, her mouth between her thighs, before the sun came up.

 

Her own Baptism had been the stuff of legend.

 

By the look on Hilda’s face, her mind has run to the same ground.

 

“I have put the fear of Lucifer in every witch and warlock of Academy-age.”

 

Hilda stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss her on the cheek.  “I knew I could count on you.”

 

“Now, come along, Hildegard, and let me ravish you in the woods.”

 

“I do like these robes. Such a shame they’re going to get dirty.”

 

******************************

 

Ice glittering in moonlit branches.  

 

Warm thighs against her hips.  

 

Hilda back-lit by the distant fire, even warmer inside.  

 

This is why their kind started fucking in forests.

 

Still--

 

She stills, smiles up at her sister.

 

“What?”

 

“This is typically the time a teenager starts screaming about a demon--or a boyfriend.”

 

They both listen.

 

Nothing.

 

“ _Right_. Get back to the ravishing then.”

 

******************************

 

“Not off cavorting?” Sabrina teases.

 

“Neither are you.”

 

“I’m monogamous, remember?”

 

“I’ll tell Harvey you behaved,” Teddy says.  She scans the scattered groups of people still in the clearing.  “Have you seen the moms?”

 

Sabrina smirks.

 

“Unlike us, I believe they _are_ cavorting. Listen.”

 

Teddy cringes at the unfortunately recognizable British accent and the fact that there is only one “Zelds” in the Coven likely to be _called_ in it.

 

“Want to start walking in the direction of the house and pretend we didn’t hear that?”

 

Sabrina slings her arm over her sister’s shoulder.

 

“I’ve been doing some version of that since _long_ before you were born.”  

 

******************************

 

Pajamas, popcorn, and a B-movie--still a Spellman family tradition celebrated by the younger pair of sisters.

 

“You had visions during your Baptism, right?”

 

“I saw my parents--telling me to run. So I did.”

 

Sabrina pauses the movie.

 

“Did something happen?  Did you see something?”

 

“Yes, but it wasn’t like that.  I mean, there wasn’t a message, just--why would I see a wolf of all things?”

 

The shock obviously registers on Sabrina’s face because Teddy’s eyes go round as she blurts, “It’s that bad? Am I going to die again?”

 

“I hope I wasn’t this dramatic when I was your age.”

 

“So you know something and you aren’t going to tell me.”

 

“Can we just--table the vision thing for now? Let’s finish the movie and I promise I’ll do some research and get back to you.”

 

“Fine.”

 

******************************

 

Light is creeping through the curtains when the elder Spellman sisters get home.

 

“It’s about time.”

 

“We were getting worried.”

 

A blonde head and a brunette head appear over the back of the sofa.

 

“You are both very amusing.”  

 

Zelda finishes hanging up their coats while Hilda rubs her hands together to get the chill off and grins in anticipation.

 

“Pancakes for breakfast, girls? Or should we be naughty and have the rest of the leftover birthday cake?”

 

“Both,” Teddy answers immediately.  “Only, mum--”

 

“What it is, love?”

 

“Please clean the leaves out of your hair first.”

 

Hilda blushes.

 

“Did you hear that, sister?” Zelda croons as she plucks the leaf she somehow missed earlier out of the back of Hilda’s hair. “That sounded remarkably like a young witch volunteering to make breakfast _herself_.”

 

“I distinctly heard that.”  Hilda’s attention falls to the trim of Zelda’s robes, as do her fingers.  “You really should get out of these.”

 

Teddy sinks back into the couch with a groan.

 

“They need to soak.”

 

Teddy’s head falls to Sabrina’s shoulder.

 

“If I die of embarrassment, will you drag me to the Cain pit?”

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No way was I giving them anything but a happy ending.
> 
> And Zelda can rule the world because it is my story.
> 
> Let me know what you think of this last chapter!


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